Pompei a un anno dal primo crollo: rivive la Schola Armaturarum, ma in 3D

Very cool reconstruction!

Pompei a un anno dal primo crollo: rivive la Schola Armaturarum, ma in 3D
Gli esperti informatici più veloci degli archeologi, torna alla luce la palestra dei gladiatori in macerie
Quando il presidente Napolitano fu informato, non esitò a definire l'accaduto «una vergogna per l'Italia», mentre l'allora ministro alla cultura Bondi sentiva già scricchiolare pericolosamente la poltrona. A un anno esatto dal crollo, l'antica Schola Armaturarum pompeiana rivive in un'elaborazione di computer grafica animata, in 3D.

 Read the full article 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.

Pompei/ Ricostruzione virtuale Schola Armaturarum a Mav Ercolano

Nice idea: a virtual reconstruction of the Schola Armaturarum will be on display at MAV Ercolano  from Friday 17th December:

Pompei/ Ricostruzione virtuale Schola Armaturarum a Mav Ercolano

Cesaro: Installazione fruibile già dal periodo natalizio

La 'Schola Armaturarum' di Pompei, andata distrutta lo scorso 6 novembre, rivivrà virtualmente presso il Mav di Ercolano. A inaugurare la nuova installazione del Museo archeologico virtuale, il prossimo venerdì 17, saranno il presidente della Provincia di Napoli, Luigi Cesaro, e il presidente della Fondazione Cives, Gaetano Daniele. 'E' nata per non crollare mai' è lo slogan individuato per lanciare l'iniziativa che Cesaro ha "fortemente voluto fosse presentata prima delle festività natalizie". "La grande capacità organizzativa dei dirigenti del Museo di Ercolano e lo splendido utilizzo della tecnologia virtuale - ha dichiarato il presidente della Provincia - renderanno possibile visitare un monumento che restauri post-bellici non sono purtroppo riusciti a proteggere dall'incalzare del tempo. Ritengo quanto mai importante che la 'Schola Armaturarum' virtuale sia stata realizzata in tempi brevissimi e sia fruibile - ha concluso - durante il periodo festivo, a disposizione di turisti e visitatori amanti della storia e della cultura delle nostre terre".

[Source: Notizie Virgilio]

Photo of collapse in House of the Moralist

This photo of the collapse in the House of the Moralist has just been published on Facebook. You can see that part of the terraces behind the house have collapsed, presumably because of the heavy rainfall, bringing down the garden wall.

You can see other photos in the same Facebook album by Comitato Cincinnato Pompei, and also some excellent archival photos of the excavation of the Schola Armaturarum, damage to it during WW2 and the photos of the recent collapse (I don't want to post them all here without permission).

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?

What do we know about the Schola Armaturarum? #2

Further to Jo’s post “What do we know about the Schola Armaturarum?” I have located an image from my collection of postcards, photos and other ephemera - one, just one, which is itself indicative of the perceived importance of this building.

Postcard produced by R&C (which I think is the Richter and Conti studio out of Naples) number 1004 15, Titled “POMPEI – Nuovi scavi. Schola Juventutis” (reverse in English, French and German) dimensions 137mm x 88mm. Postcard has been used but post stamp is illegible, author of message however dates the card as 19th September 1933.

Reverse/higher resolution scan available on request.

DB

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.

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).

Trophy-hunting in Pompeii

This week I have been (happily) distracted from my own research project by a question from one of my colleagues about depictions of trophies in Roman wall painting.

I came across these paintings on the facade of a building at III.3.6 on the Via dell'Abbondanza, the so-called Schola Armaturarum.

Does anyone know of recent research on this building? I would love to know if anyone has challenged the interpretation of the function of the building.

[Image source: My quick scan of PPM vol. III, p. 395]