Cultural Heritage and Human Development on the Dark Side of Vesuvius

In order to find ways to contribute to the human development of Campania while better caring for the archaeological heritage, the Apolline Project recently hosted Alexander Smithers, a Masters student of Cultural Heritage and International Development currently at the University of East Anglia under the supervision of Dr Akira Matsuda. Research carried out during this visit will form the basis of a management plan intended to further these goals. As the Apolline Project aspires to be as open as possible, we asked him to write a few pages on his findings so far which we have now posted on our website. We have done this in order to stimulate discussion in the area of public archaeology and how it intersects with development issues. We hope that we can start a debate on these pages in response to this, considering the valuable contributions made in this field by many scholars to Blogging Pompeii.

http://www.apollineproject.org/cultural-heritage.html

Pompeii in Current World Archaeology

As you know from the previous post, Sarah and I have an article in the new edition of Current World Archaeology, entitled 'What's new in Pompeii.' It's not about what's 'new' in the sense of 'new discoveries', it's about new approaches to studying Pompeii and its neighbours that have been informed by the current conservation problems at the site. The main idea is to highlight how scholars working at sites in the Bay of Naples are trying to record evidence before it disappears, to examine old evidence in new ways, to record and preserve lesser known sites, and to engage the local community in their efforts. It is intended to be an up-beat piece that features some of the positive initiatives taking place on site.

Obviously we were only able to cover a few projects, and our text was also cut by the CWA editors (if anyone wants to see the original piece before the cuts, they should email me). But the publication of the article is a good opportunity to start a wider discussion about conservation and archaeology. We'd like to hear your thoughts about how conservation issues have influenced your work, or about approaches you think could be successfully adopted by others. What are you doing that others could learn from? Or what do you want to know about the way the others are working on site or in the archives? How do you see the relationship between archaeology and conservation? And what do you think the future holds for Pompeii and the other sites?

Sarah and I would welcome any thoughts, observations or comments, and we hope that as many of you as possible will take part in this discussion.

P.S. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it hard to imagine Sarah as a sidekick!

News roundup

Lots of media attention about the conservation problems at Pompeii in the last week. Here are some of the articles that have turned up on my RSS feeds:

20th October: Passera: possibile lasciar morire Pompei? Villari: la salviamo con 500 milioni
22nd October: Has another Pompeii wall collapsed? (The most sensible comment on the 'collapses')
23rd October: Pompeii wall collapse blamed on Berlusconi's broken promises
24th October: «Pompei, slittano le assunzioni di tecnici»
26th October: Cantieri, vandali e carte del Kinder. Pompei, viaggio sgangherato agli Scavi
26th October: EU to step up supervision of Pompeii
27th October: New collapse reported at Pompeii after EU talks
27th October: Pompeii collapse renews outrage over site's condition 
27th October: L’Union européenne au secours de Pompéi
28th October: Italian union urges better controls to save Pompeii

MiBAC and Soprintendenza deny that there has been a collapse in the Villa of Diomedes

Claims of a collapse in the Villa of Diomedes have been denied by the authorities who have criticised the alarmism of this morning. Not only was the collapse NOT in the Villa of Diomedes (rather it was a partial collapse of the rear wall of a fountain in VI.1.14, which is inside the city walls on the Via Consolare), but it does not appear to have happened recently:

Pompei, Mibac smentisce nuovo crollo: ''Nessun danno nella villa di Diomede''
Roma - (Adnkronos/Ign) - In mattinata la Uil Beni culturali aveva denunciato un altro crollo nella Domus. Ma dopo il sopralluogo il Ministero smentisce: ''Non è vero. Inaccettabile allarmismo''.
Nessun crollo a Pompei. Il Ministero dei Beni culturali smentisce il nuovo cedimento nella Domus di Diomede, denunciato in mattinata dalla Uil Beni Culturali, e parla di ''inaccettabile allarmismo'' che ha come unico obiettivo quello di ''gettare discredito'' sul Mibac.

''La verifica effettuata sul posto dai tecnici della Soprintendenza - si legge in una nota del Mibac - in sopralluogo congiunto con le forze dell'ordine, ha accertato che tutto ciò non corrisponde a verità, nella maniera più assoluta".

La Uil Beni culturali aveva denunciato il cedimento di un muro della Domus di Diomede sulla via Consolare, la stessa dove nei giorni scorsi erano crollati altri due muretti.

Ma per il Mibac nel corso del ''sopralluogo nella Regio VI.1.4 , si è constatato il parziale distacco della muratura posteriore di una fontana, che si è adagiata all'interno della fontana stessa. L'episodio non è sicuramente recente, come dimostra la crescita di vegetazione spontanea. Si tratta di una domus scavata nel 1700, chiusa al pubblico, la cui messa in sicurezza è già prevista nel Programma per la salvaguardia per Pompei".

 Read the full story here.

Collapse of a small part of the wall at the Nola Gate

There's going to be the usual hysteria about this in the media (sigh), but can I just point everyone towards this video of the damage on You Tube. The collapse is not extensive, and I can't see that it's fair to blame anyone for it ...

Napoli Est, torna il Pompei World

Also in Corriere del Mezzogiorno, this old chestnut:

Napoli Est, torna il Pompei World
Il parco come alternativa all'inceneritore 

Riqualificare l'area con un parco tematico su Pompei
e la sua storia, inserito in un percorso didattico

NAPOLI — Altro che inceneritore. I progetti del Comune per Napoli Est sono di tutt'altro tipo. Ieri in Consiglio comunale è stata chiesta la realizzazione di Pompei World con un ordine del giorno firmato da Carmine Attanasio e Carmine Schiano. Riqualificare l'area con un grande parco tematico su Pompei e la sua storia, inserito in un percorso didattico e di divertimento; questo in sintesi quello che è scritto nel documento assunto dall'amministrazione comunale. «Un sito simile determinerebbe - è scritto nel documento - la riqualificazione di tutta l'area vesuviana attraverso la realizzazione di migliaia di nuove camere d'albergo, parcheggi, porticcioli turistici e di tutto quello che serve a creare una vera industria del turismo».

Read the full article here. I'd be interested to know what others think of this oft-repeated idea, particularly the 'Universal Studios' exploding Vesuvius! Personally I'm all for Pompeian replicas, and there are some great ones already out there, but does it really need to be part of a theme park?

Newspaper article: Arrivano piogge, nuovo allarme a Pompei

From Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno, fears that autumn and winter rains may cause more collapses at Pompeii.

Arrivano piogge, nuovo allarme a Pompei
l sottosegretario Villari: «Attendiamo fondi strutturali per mettere in sicurezza il sito. Presto nuove assunzioni»

NAPOLI - I crolli all’interno degli scavi di Pompei dello scorso anno sono ancora sotto gli occhi di tutti. Adesso, con l’avvicinarsi dell’autunno e dell’inverno (e quindi delle piogge) è di nuovo allarme. Lo sa bene il sottosegretario ai Beni culturali, Riccardo Villari, che oggi ha detto: «Tra quindici giorni incontreremo Johannes Hahn, commissario Ue alla politica regionale. Per quella data bisognerà mettere sul tavolo i fatti, in modo da ottenere il via libera dell'Ue per i fondi strutturali e mettere così in sicurezza il sito di Pompei dal punto di vista idrogeologico. È la prima cosa da fare, anche per l'imminente arrivo delle piogge».

CENTO MILIONI A FINE MESE - Villari ha partecipato alla presentazione dei lavoridi restauro dell'area della conceria romana sponsorizzati da Unic, a quasi un anno dal crollo dell'Armeria dei gladiatori, il 6 novembre 2010, condividendo la preoccupazione per nuovi possibili crolli. I fondi a cui fa riferimento Villari ammontano a circa 100 milioni di euro. «Vorrei evitare annunci - ha risposto a chi gli ha chiesto delle assunzioni di nuovi archeologi – preferisco lavorare molto e parlare poco. Spero che arrivino a fine mese, così come spero che al più presto si possano assumere anche nuovi operai».

Read the full story here.

 

 

UNESCO report

Thanks also to Didier Daimonax for posting to our FB page a link to the recent UNESCO report on the condition of Pompeii. What follows here is the Executive Summary and List of Recommendations. To read the full report, follow this link.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

The joint ICOMOS/UNESCO mission to the World Heritage property of Pompei, Herculaneum was invited by the Italian government following the collapse of the Schola Armaturarum on the night of 5-6 November 2010. Because of adverse weather conditions, the mission took place in two parts. The ICOMOS experts visited from 1 to 5 December, and the UNESCO expert was on site from 10 to 13 January. The mission visited all three parts of the World Heritage property and examined the overall state of conservation as well as the specific collapse. This report has been produced jointly by the mission members.

The mission found that the Schola Armaturarum had collapsed following the heaviest rainfall in 80 years. The building is adjacent to an unexcavated portion of the site which encouraged waterlogging. It had been weakened by bombing in World War II and had then been given a heavy and inappropriate reinforced concrete roof. The mission did not consider that the collapse of the Schola, in itself, has had a significant impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property but agreed that further deterioration across the property could lead to significant damage to attributes that sustain the Outstanding Universal Value, authenticity and integrity in a few years.

Overall, the mission found that much of the property was in a good state of repair. They were concerned however by the poor state of maintenance of parts of the enormous site of Pompei and by the number of houses and other structures and requiring major conservation work at both Pompei and Herculaneum. They were also concerned by the gradual deterioration of wall paintings, mosaic floors and other decorative features. While some decay is inevitable in an exposed ruin, the mission considered that conditions were being exacerbated by excessive moisture and lack of routine maintenance. They were also concerned by the amount of plant growth, particularly ivy, in some places at Pompei, though elsewhere this is being vigorously tackled. Some of these structures are at risk and need urgent intervention. Generally, the backlog of maintenance at Pompei needs to be tackled urgently. Equally, drainage needs to be improved so that rain and ground water are readily and rapidly removed to prevent the damage being caused by waterlogging of the ground and by rising and penetrating damp in standing structures.

The mission considered that visitor management was an issue both in terms of potential erosion and in terms of increasing their enjoyment and education. They recognised that advances had been made both in terms of interpretation, arrangements for access and through the increasing number of houses which had been restored to permit access. However, these advances are to some extent negated by the lack of custodians which means that large parts of both Pompei and Herculaneum are not accessible to visitors on a regular basis. The mission considered that the development of a public use plan as part of the overall management system for the property could help the development of a more integrated approach to visitor management.

The mission fully recognises the skill and devotion of the staff of the Superintendency to their site. However, there are insufficient skilled professional staff to manage what needs to be done and they are entirely dependent on contractors for carrying out the necessary work. The mission believes that this has been exacerbated by diverting scarce resources to non-urgent projects such as the restoration of the theatre at Pompei. It is also probable that staff have been distracted by institutional instability over the last three years or so.

The mission was also concerned that there is no clear definition of the Outstanding Universal Value for the property to provide a base-line for effective management and conservation. There are also no measures for monitoring the condition of the property. Apart from Herculaneum there appeared to be an inadequate information base since the Geographic Information System (GIS) for Pompei contains no data from later than 2002. Pompei does have a Management Plan but it did not seem to be used as an effective tool for planning and driving management decisionmaking at the site. There is a need for a clearer focus on these issues and on focusing all efforts on key priorities. At Herculaneum the joint project between the Superintendency and the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP) has done much to eliminate the maintenance backlog there. With the life of the project drawing to a close, it is essential that the good practices developed there are closely studied by the Superintendency and adopted as far as possible across the property.

The mission concluded that the Outstanding Universal Value of the property had not yet been significantly compromised. However there are a considerable number of buildings at risk and a major backlog of conservation. If these are not tackled rapidly and urgently, there could be a significant risk to Outstanding Universal Value in the next few years. The mission also considers that more may need to be done to protect the visual setting of the property, particularly the vital visual links to Mount Vesuvius. The mission considers therefore that a further mission should visit the property within the next two years and that the World Heritage Committee should examine the state of conservation of the property again in 2013 to assess whether its condition has improved or worsened.

The Mission has made a number of recommendations which fall into four groups:

A. Immediate measures to improve conservation and maintenance
B. Measures to maintain and enhance the skills base and provide necessary information
C. Measures to improve the management of site and understanding of OUV
D. Follow-up action by UNESCO
A. Immediate measures to improve conservation and maintenance

Recommendation 1: The mission recommends that priority in work programmes should be given to dealing with the maintenance backlog at the property, the restoration of those buildings identified as being at risk by the mission together with any others identified in the condition survey carried out by the Superintendency.

Recommendation 2: The creation of effective drainage systems, particularly at Pompei, should be carried out as soon as possible to remove one of the basic causes of decay. As well as dealing with ground drainage, as far as possible rain should be prevented from entering roofed structures.

B. Measures to maintain and enhance the skills base and provide necessary information

Recommendation 3: The mission recommends that all contractors should be assessed for their ability to carry out skilled conservation work before they are allowed to tender for conservation work in the World Heritage property.

Recommendation 4: The Superintendency and Ministry of Culture should determine how many technical staff are required to carry out an effective programme to eradicate the current backlog of conservation and maintenance and should take steps to provide those resources as soon as possible.

Recommendation 5: The mission recommends the Superintendency and the Ministry of Culture to provide sufficient custody staff at Pompei, as a matter of urgency, to enable more of the property to be opened to the public in order to spread the visitor load and improve visitors’ understanding of the site. This should be an essential element of the public use plan proposed in Recommendation 12.

Recommendation 6: The GIS for Pompei should be updated with all relevant information and kept up-to-date so that it can be used as a basic tool for the conservation and management of the site.

Recommendation 7: The Superintendency should plan with the HCP for the takeover in due course of the Herculaneum GIS and be resourced for its future maintenance and use as a basic tool for the conservation and management of the site.

Recommendation 8: The Superintendency with, if possible, support from the HCP should develop common standards for GIS in use within the Vesuvian group of monuments to enable easy exchange of data and regular updating as a basis for improved information management.

C. Measures to improve management of site and understanding of OUV

Recommendation 9: The Italian Government is recommended to submit a full Statement of Outstanding Universal Value by 1 February 2012 for consideration and adoption by the World Heritage Committee as the basis for the future management of the property in accordance with Decision 34 COM 10B.3 of the World Heritage Committee.

Recommendation 10: The Superintendency should develop and implement a set of simple monitoring measures for the condition and use of the site and should have these in place by 1 February 2012 and submit them for review by ICOMOS and the World Heritage Centre.

Recommendation 11: The Ministry of Culture is recommended to maintain institutional stability within the Special Superintendency in order to allow it to focus on managing and conserving the site as its main priority.

Recommendation 12: The Superintendency should review the Management Plan with other stakeholders and the Ministry of Culture to identify ways in which it can be used more effectively as a tool for the effective conservation and management of the property. The Management Plan should include public use and risk management plans. The Italian Government should report on progress on this by 1 February 2013.

Recommendation 13: The Superintendency, the Packard Humanities Institute and the British School at Rome, as the partners in the Herculaneum Conservation Project agreed and are implementing a phased programme over the next few years for withdrawal by the Project which enables the Superintendency to continue to implement the approaches developed, particularly in the area of programmed maintenance. The Ministry and the Superintendency must guarantee their commitment to this programme. Ideally, the private partners should follow the phased handover for conservation works with some form of light support for a number of years to favour the commitment to the improved management and conservation approaches by the public authority at Herculaneum (but perhaps also at the other sites in it is care), particularly in a period when the management system for these sites might be subject to change.

Recommendation 14: It is recommended that measures for the effective protection of the visual setting of the property, particularly the visual links with Mount Vesuvius, should be reviewed and strengthened as necessary, possibly by the extension of the buffer zones.

D. Follow-up action by UNESCO

Recommendation 15: It is recommended that the World Heritage Committee should invite the State Party to submit a State of Conservation report for consideration at its 37th session in 2013, reporting on progress on the Recommendations made by the mission and the general state of conservation of the World Heritage property. It is further recommended that the State Party should be invited to request a joint ICOMOS/ UNESCO mission during 2012 in order to assist with this process.

Pompéi, les causes d’un « scandale à l’italienne »?

This was on the radio in France yesterday:

Pompéi, les causes d’un « scandale à l’italienne » ?

Dans la nuit du 5 au 6 novembre 2010 Schola Armaturarum, dénommée aussi Schola Juventutis, s’effondrait.

Donnant directement sur l’artère principale de Pompéi -la via de l’Abbondanza- cette grande bâtisse, peinte dans les années 62-70 de notre ère, a été dégagée en 1916

Quelles sont les causes de cet effondrement, comme de celui du Colisée de Rome, peut-on y voir un « scandale à l’italienne », serions nous devant « les derniers jours de Pompéi » ?

Alix Barbet, directeur de recherche au CNRS
Jean Pierre Adam, chercheur au CNRS

You can listen to the interview here.

Article: The collapse of Pompeii? A view from Herculaneum

Check out the latest Minerva for an article by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and the folks at the HCP on the problems of heritage management at Pompeii and Herculaneum.


A. Wallace-Hadrill, The collapse of Pompeii? A view from Herculaneum. Minerva. International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology, Vol 22, no.2 (March/April 2011).

Apollo from Pompeii: Investigating an Ancient Bronze

As previously reported, starting next week the Apollo Saettante will go on display at the Getty Villa, the second major bronze from Pompeii to be conserved and displayed here (the first was the ephebe from the House of the Ephebe). For more details about the loan of these bronzes to the US, see here:

Apollo from Pompeii: Investigating an Ancient Bronze
March 2–September 12, 2011
Buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the Apollo Saettante (Apollo as an Archer) was unearthed in pieces between 1817 and 1818. Depicting the god in the act of shooting an arrow, the statue was one of the first major bronzes to be found at Pompeii. As part of the J. Paul Getty Museum's collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the sculpture was brought to the Getty Villa for study and conservation treatment in 2009. This exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes look at that project, revealing how the statue was manufactured in antiquity as well as the methods and materials used to restore it in nineteenth-century Naples.

More newspaper articles about the state of Pompeii

Thanks to Jennifer Stern for drawing my attention to this piece in Newsweek, which - in my opinion - exaggerates the extent of the collapses in Pompeii and dismisses the efforts and views of the SANP (when is a journalist going to properly interview someone from the SANP???). There is also an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal focussing on the economics of the situation.

Article: Pompeii’s Problems Reflect Longstanding Neglect

An article from this week's New York Times is a bit more sensible than most:

Pompeii’s Problems Reflect Longstanding Neglect

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

POMPEII, Italy — Is Pompeii crumbling?

So it would seem, judging from the media maelstrom about several recent collapses at the ancient ruins here, including that of the Schola Armaturarum, a spacious hall used by a military association before it was engulfed with the rest of the city by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

A long tract on the north side of the Via dell’Abbondanza — a commercial hub of this formerly prosperous Roman city — is blocked by metal barriers, and some buildings are propped up with scaffolding as a precautionary measure. Rubble sits on the road where the Schola Armaturarum stood, a remnant of the 1947 restoration that shored up the building after it was damaged by Allied bombing during World War II.

The collapses at Pompeii have become a metaphor for Italy’s political instability and its inability to care for its cultural heritage. There have been calls for the resignation of the culture minister, Sandro Bondi, and investigators are beginning to address questions about the management of recent restoration efforts. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or Unesco, sent a team of experts this month to examine the damage at Pompeii, a World Heritage site, and the findings are to be presented at a conference in June in Bahrain.

“Pompeii is fragile,” said Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, an archaeologist who supervised the site for the Culture Ministry from 1994 to 2009. “There’s the type of construction, the shock of Vesuvius, the fact that it was buried for centuries in acidy terrain that ate away at the mortar.”

The pounding rains that soaked parts of Italy this fall were also a factor, he said, though far from the only one. “The rain merely drew attention to a state of neglect that has dragged on for years,” Mr. Guzzo said. “Ordinary maintenance and programmed conservation are not carried out at Pompeii. That is the problem.”

Continue reading the article here.

More Comment on the State of Pompeii

From L'espresso (la Repubblica) today. It includes a note on the two (or 3) colapses over the past few days.

http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/pompei-ecco-cosa-fanno/2139405

Because the large theatre is my research area I noted with interest the picture and the comment on mechanical excavators in the theatre. In fairness I have not seen nor have I had reports of diggers *in* the theatre, and the image that is being used is not recent (the rear walls of the however as the image shows work has gone on between the theatre and the quadraporticus.

When I say "work" what I mean is the loss of that area to access, my permisso this year explicitly forbade entry into this area, presumably as it is now a workshop/storage/greenroom servicing the large theatre and the temporary portacabins have been plumbed in, this area was considered too dangerous with things being moved around at the close of the theatre season. Given that I had permissions for the whole of VIII.7 and even the buildings currently undergoing work with the Sarno Canal redevelopment were not officially off limits, this was surprising. I include a newer image from September this year to clarify the situation.

DB

Dealing with Decay #2

I recently was given a link to a very interesting video-article about what might be described as the exploration of ruined urban spaces or landscapes (http://www.placehacking.co.uk/2010/10/05/urban-explorers-video-article/). In the context of Miko's practical call to action and Drew's documentation of Schola Armatoria's early life cycle, the theoretical implications of this video for our understanding and use of Pompeii have me fascinated. In brief, these urban explorers are seeking out ruined and abandoned places because of their state of being and because of the state of decay that precipitated it. In this model decay is a generative process, not a thing to be halted and held back, but a "disordering" an "uncivilizing" system in its own right. How to conceive of this? Shall we hold onto the metaphor of progress and call this a "return to nature" or "history in reverse"? Or do we accept the implications of the urban explorers and put decay into the motion of time with us, accept, anticipate and even anxiously await it? And what about the conditions that lead to decay? Neglect. Negligence. Abandonment. Dismantlement.

These questions contextualize our desires for conservation of Pompeii in a unique way. In this context, conservation is antithetical to the natural life cycle of the object. Conservation is artificial life support, the state of suspended animation of the artifact that forestalls the eventual reconstitution of everything with everything else. An honest assessment shows our perspective selfishly supports our ambitions, with arguments for conservation couched in emotional language of damage, loss, and missed opportunity. (Parenthetically, however, honesty should not make the impact of an emotionally charged word [selfish] a reason to stop making such arguments: they are effective and I will continue to make them and accept that I am selfish.)

But perhaps these ideas - decay and conservation - are not antithetical. Indeed, they may have a more synergistic relationship than it appears. For it seems likely that the decay of Pompeii is essential to its appeal. Its ruined condition embodies and performs in physical form the emotions we sell in our calls for conservation. Indeed,would as many people pay to see a facsimile of Pompeii completely reconstructed versus the actual state of the city? Would visiters carve their names on the walls? Take small bits of it for souvenirs? In academia and in politics, it is the process of decay - rushed out of geological or biological time into human time as destructive events - that drives conversation, donation, and policy change. Look at the narrative fallout from the collapse of this one minor, largely ignored and largely restored building (including this narrative).

Is decay such a bad thing (especially of a building that was mostly less than 60 years old)? Can it be, ironically, a catalyst to forestall decay? What, then, happens next?

Dealing with decay

So the House of the Gladiators has collapsed, and I am an archaeologist working at Pompeii, what does it - professionally - mean to me? After a week of reading about the collapse, looking at the pictures, and discussing it with several people, I spent some time last Friday afternoon to organize my thoughts and writing them down. It resulted in a kind of 'working paper' that I put up on my website. I thought it might be interesting for the Blogging Pompeii community as well. A PDF is available here.
Basically, my perhaps at points slightly provocative argument is that the inevitable (and unstoppable) phenomenon of decay at sites like Pompeii has implications for the way we prioritize our research agenda, and I basically feel that we need to partially stop doing certain things, and start doing certain other things before the data gets lost. Not all of you will necessarily agree with all that I am saying, and, actually, my personal ideas are developing rapidly at this very moment, so I am open to any good arguments, but after all, the key issue is this: it is an problem that - I feel - deserves more open, explicit discussion within the scholarly community, and this seems like the best place to start. We all have our ideas, lets see where we agree and disagree, and how that can help us making sensible decisions.

Pompei, fu ignorato l'allarme dei custodi

Claims now that custodians had raised the alarm about the Schola Armaturarum, but had been ignored. In summary, according to this article, there are plans to investigate Fiori's management of Pompeii. And apparently employees of the Soprintendenza have been forbidden to talk to journalists. Finally, reports of further collapses in the House of the Moralist and House of Trebius Valens have been proved false. This is interesting reading.

From La Repubblica:

Pompei, fu ignorato l'allarme dei custodi

Nel brogliaccio dei sorveglianti degli scavi il monito lanciato pochi giorni prima che crollasse la Schola Armaturarum. Ma la segnalazione non fu raccolta

dal nostro inviato STELLA CERVASIO

POMPEI — L’allarme sui gladiatori c’era stato, ma nessuno l’aveva ascoltato. Documento che scotta nel brogliaccio dei custodi, un atto ufficiale che in soprintendenza non è stato raccolto. Dopo il crollo, invece, la Corte dei conti vuole vederci chiaro e apre un’inchiesta sulla gestione del commissario Fiori. Dalle prime indiscrezioni sarebbero almeno due i casi di lavori dati in appalto a ditte in assenza di contratto. 

Pompei si blinda nel giorno dell’audizione di Bondi in Parlamento e alla vigilia di due appuntamenti importanti: l’arrivo della commissione della Camera oggi in soprintendenza alle 12 e alla stessa ora, a Roma, la denuncia del Pd contro la cattiva gestione del sito. Ieri mattina a tutti i dipendenti della soprintendenza è arrivata una circolare che vieta di parlare ai giornalisti. La reazione a una nottata difficile: martedì era arrivata ai carabinieri di Pompei una telefonata anonima che segnalava nuovi crolli alla Casa di Trebio Valente e a quella del Moralista. 

I tecnici della soprintendenza e l’Arma dopo un sopralluogo avevano smentito la voce e il ministro Bondi ha disposto di denunciare chi ha dato la notizia infondata per “procurato allarme”. A cadere è stato infatti solo un muretto grezzo nel triclinio di Trebio Valente. Nessun crollo neanche per la Casa del Moralista, ha ceduto un muro della bottega adiacente alla domus, quella del vasaio Zosimus, che dà sul vicolo di Ifigenia, ma i tecnici ne avevano già preso atto. La Procura ha disposto di allargare l’area del sequestro: oltre alla zona del crollo, anche l’area di Trebio Valente e della bottega della Domus del Moralista, a monte delle quali sono in corso lavori per convogliare le acque piovane e dei campi coltivati. 

Tutto questo prova che non ci sarebbero altri edifici a rischio. Ma parti di questi, sì. E i più seri li corrono i muri di contenimento, dove manca la manutenzione ordinaria. Tutti indicano anche i solai di copertura di alcune insulae: dalla Casina dell’Aquila, punto più alto degli Scavi, alcuni sono rifatti, altri no. Casi che il monitoraggio quotidiano della sorveglianza ha ben presenti. E che anche nel caso del muro nel vicolo di Ifigenia, di fianco alla Schola Armaturarum, era stato segnalato.

Proprio a questo proposito c’è una pagina interessante del “Registro delle relazioni dei custodi”, un brogliaccio quotidiano su cui sono scritte le segnalazioni dopo ognuna delle otto ispezioni che i sorveglianti effettuano ogni giorno a Pompei, casa per casa, aprendole con il pesante mazzo di chiavi in possesso di ognuno. Alla data del 3 novembre, tre giorni prima che crollasse lo “showroom” di trofei dei gladiatori, sul registro protocollato che il direttore degli Scavi dovrebbe vedere ogni mattina, è annotato “il crollo di un muro lungo dieci metri nel vicolo di Ifigenia”. 

C’è la firma del custode che ha rilevato il danno. Prima il direttore siglava la segnalazione e affidava ad assistenti la verifica del danno, stabilendo se si poteva ovviare in tempi brevi o era necessaria una perizia. «Da quando i soprintendenti si susseguono a ritmi frenetici, i direttori devono anche sostituirli — spiegano i dipendenti dell’area archeologica — e nell’ufficio su agli Scavi che fu quello di Giuseppe Fiorelli e dei suoi successori, non mettono più piede». Impossibile quindi raccogliere l’appello di chi aveva visto il muro crollato a pochi metri da dove tre giorni dopo avrebbe ceduto l’intero edificio della Schola Armaturarum «restaurata — dicono sempre in soprintendenza — non più tardi di sei mesi fa». 

A testimoniarlo, una foto estiva di Google View in ritardo di qualche mese con l’aggiornamento. Qui, sulla facciata dell’Armeria dei gladiatori, si vede un tabellone di lavori in corso. Lavori che non sono serviti a evitare il disastro. Ed è su questi ed altri interventi che la Corte dei conti indaga, dopo la pronuncia dell’agosto scorso di dubbio sulle emergenze per cui la gestione di Pompei è stata affidata alla Protezione civile.

'Ruins of Pompeii Disintegrating'. And that was 1955!

'Ruins of Pompeii Disintegrating'. Sound familiar? Yet this is a headline from the New York Times in 1955!

A big thank you to Martin Conde for sending in this link to old newspaper articles he has collected about the condition of Pompeii. Take a look at them - there are reports every few years about the terrible condition of Pompeii.

Martin's collection is a work in progress. Here the reference:

Martin G. Conde, 'The Problems Relating to the Management & Excavations of the Archaeological Ruins of Herculaneum / Pompeii as Reported in Foreign Press: The New York Times, The Times (London) & The Washington Post (1904-2002).' [In progress]


This is Martin's blog: Rome – The Imperial Fora: Archaeological News.

Photomosaic of Region III, Insula 3 before the collapse

This image of Regio III, Insula 3 created by Jennifer and Arthur Stephens as part of the Via dell'Abbondanza Project (www.pompeiiperspectives.org), shows the Schola Armaturarum (doorway 6, on the right) as it appeared in 2009.  The photomosaic was made by combining multiple digital images and a total station survey of the facade of the city block.  The completed photomosaics are at a scale of 1:25 @ 300 ppi.  The project is documenting all 32 insulae along the 900 meter-long street for the archives in Pompeii and future publication.


Click on the image to enlarge.

What do we know about the Schola Armaturarum?

Predictably there has been a lot of hysteria in the media about yesterday's collapse of the Schola Armaturarum, including calls for the privatisation of the archaeological site of Pompeii, and accusations of official neglect. The following are just a few of the reports that have appeared:

NY Times: Pompeii Collapse Draws Charges of Official Neglect
La Repubblica: An interview with ex-Superintendent of Pompeii, Pier Giovanni Guzzo (audio in Italian, with completely irrelevant video) and before and after photos.
BBC News: House of the Gladiators collapses in Pompeii (with video)
ANSA: Pompei: Bondi, se responsabile lascerei
NY Daily News: Ancient Pompeii gladiators' locker room collapses; Italians angered by neglect of Roman ruins
The Telegraph: Pompeii ruin collapses amid claims site mismanaged

There are many, many others. Apparently some commentators have even been using the collapse to justify private collections (since, it is argued, the Italian authorities can't look after their heritage themselves). And this illustrates nicely how the collapse is being milked for political purposes of all sorts.

But I don't want to get on my soapbox about this (really!), except to say that the job of conservation at Pompeii is an endless battle and that I believe the people who work there do their best with the resources they have.

Instead I want to focus on the Schola Armaturarum and its excavation. Eighteen months ago Francesca Tronchin posted a query about recent research on this building, and the illustration below.

Illustration of the Schola Armaturarum in Spinazzola's 1953 publication of the Via dell' Abbondanza

Rereading this - and reading all the newspaper reports about the collapse - got me thinking about how little I know about this particular structure. And so I want to suggest that we do a bit of collective research and information gathering about it. The authorities may reconstruct the building itself, but the frescoes are gone and the only way to study them now will be from archival sources (although in fact the frescoes were already in a terrible condition). I think it would be helpful to collect references to this material now.

The Schola Armaturarum was mainly excavated in 1915 by Vittorio Spinazzola. Its stunning facade frescos led him to partly excavate the building, as can be seen in the plan below (adapted from Dobbins and Foss, World of Pompeii). But his main focus was on excavating the Via dell' Abbondanza, and it is this that is now causing problems - the unexcavated land behind the northern facades of the streets is collapsing into the street, aided by heavy rainfalls. Other reported collapses at Pompeii in the past two years are from the same general area (House of Julius Polybius, House of the Chaste Lovers, and further along the Via dell'Abbondanza in Region III). This needs to be a major focus of future conservation work, or more collapses are inevitable.

I still haven't been able to answer Francesca's query about recent bibliography, but the following are studies of the building that I do know about:

• Spinazzola's initial report on the building and its frescoes was published in the NSC (and can thus be read on-line) in 1916: Di due grandi trofei dipinti rimessi a luce nella Via dell' Abbondanza e di una sala decorata di pitture di Vittorie volante, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita (1916) 429 - 450.  There are some references to the building in the 1915 NSC reports by Matteo della Corte.
• Spinazzola's definitive publication of his excavations along the Via dell'Abbondanza: Pompeii Alla Luce Degli Scavi Nuovi Di Via Dell' Abbondanza (Anni 1910-1923) Rome, 1953'
• Matteo della Corte discusses the building in his Iuventus: un nuovo aspetta della vita pubblica di Pompei finora inesplorato (1924).
• Robert Etienne questioned the identification of the building as a Schola Iuventutis in his Daily Life in Ancient Pompeii (1966) 409 - 411.
• Luciana Jacobelli gives a description of the building and its frescoes in her Gladiators at Pompeii (2003)
• There is detailed discussion of the building (with some great photos, which can be viewed on the Google Books scan of the book) in Laurentino Garcia y Garcia's Danni di Guerra a Pompei (Rome, 2006). During WW2 a bomb destroyed the reconstructed roof of the building; it was rebuilt in the 1950s.

According to Jacobelli, the Schola Armaturarum was built after AD 62 on the remains of an earlier building. Della Corte thought it was a kind of school for Pompeii's youth, but Jacobelli claims that 'more recently it has been hypothesised that it was a depository of gladiatorial arms'. She doesn't give details about this recent study - does anyone know what she's referring to? In the back room there was evidence that wooden cabinets had been fixed to the walls. These are thought to have contained weaponry - but in actual fact only a single ivory handle was found by the excavators. The walls behind the cabinets were painted with Winged Victories bearing  weapons and shields - which is why the building is now connected to gladiators. Personally I think the jury is still out on that one, but this was certainly a distinctive and unusual building which must have had a particular function. Does anyone else have any thoughts or theories?

Can anyone add any information to my summary? Or does anyone have any photos of the building before its collapse? Post them to the blog, or send them to me to bloggingpompeii@gmail.com (I will forward them to Pompeiana.org and PompeiiinPictures).