Excavations of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae  

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Tomb of Pompeii by Jean-Baptiste Tierce, 1766

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Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery, classical archaeology, First descriptions of the excavations of the Herculaneum

In 79, Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash. For centuries the sites were abandoned and eventually their names and locations were forgotten. The towns were found in 1599 by the architect Domenico Fontana, who was digging a new course for the river Sarno, but it took more than 150 years before a serious campaign was started to unearth them.

Around 1709, the Herculaneum was discovered and partly raided. Thirty years later, in 1738 its uncovering was started by workmen working on the foundation of the Palace of Portici, a summer palace of for the Charles III of Spain.

Pompeii was rediscovered as the result of intentional excavations in 1748 by the Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre working in the service of Charles III, who took great interest in the findings even after becoming king of Spain because the display of antiquities reinforced the political and cultural power of Naples. Pompeii and Herculaneum have since been excavated to reveal many intact buildings and wall paintings.

Domenico Fontana

Some have theorized that Domenico Fontana found some of the famous erotic frescoes and, due to the strict modesty prevalent during his time, reburied them in an attempt at archaeological censorship. This view is bolstered by reports of later excavators who felt that sites they were working on had already been visited and reburied. Even many recovered household items had a sexual theme. The ubiquity of such imagery and items indicates that the sexual mores of the ancient Roman culture of the time were much more liberal than most present-day cultures, although much of what might seem to us to be erotic imagery (eg. over-sized phalluses) was in fact fertility-imagery. This clash of cultures led to an unknown number of discoveries being hidden away again. A wall fresco which depicted Priapus, the ancient god of sex and fertility, with his extremely enlarged penis, was covered with plaster, even the older reproduction below was locked away "out of prudishness" and only opened on request and only rediscovered in 1998 due to rainfall.

In 1819, when King Francis I of Naples visited the Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum with his wife and daughter, he was so embarrassed by the erotic artwork that he decided to have it locked away in a secret cabinet, accessible only to "people of mature age and respected morals". Re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly 100 years, it was briefly made accessible again at the end of the 1960s (the time of the sexual revolution) and was finally re-opened for viewing in 2000. Minors are still only allowed entry to the once secret cabinet in the presence of a guardian or with written permission.

A large number of artifacts come from Pompeii are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum.

Alcubierre

Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre

In 1738 the Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre was working on the palace for Charles III of Spain when ancient Roman artifacts were being discovered. Alcubierre took charge of the excavations, initially at Herculaneum, then, in 1748 excavations began at a new site believed to be Stabiae, only later identified as Pompeii. Alcubierre left the detailed excavation work to his assistants, initially Karl Jakob Weber, then from 1764 Fransesco la Vega, but remained in overall charge of the excavations around Vesuvius until his death in 1780.

First real excavations

Karl Weber directed the first real excavations; he was followed in 1764 by military engineer Franscisco la Vega. Franscisco la Vega was succeeded by his brother, Pietro, in 1804. During the French occupation Pietro worked with Christophe Saliceti.

Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations in 1860. During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realized these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to perfectly recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims. What resulted were highly accurate and eerie forms of the doomed Pompeiani who failed to escape, in their last moment of life, with the expression of terror often quite clearly visible. This technique is still in use today, with a clear resin now used instead of plaster because it is more durable, and does not destroy the bones, allowing further analysis. Discoveries made by Fiorelli:

Timeline of discoveries since 1860[1]

Discoveries made by Fiorelli:

• House of Siricus (1862)
• House of the Hanging Balcony (1862)
• Marine Gate (1863)
• Vicolo del Lupanare (1863)
• House of M. Lucretius Stabia (1871)
• Temple of Venus
• House of Epidius Sabinus
• House of the Citharist
• House of Epidius Rufus

Discoveries made by Ruggero:

• House of L. Caecilius Jucundus (1875-76)
• Central Baths (1877-78)
• House of the Centenary (1879-80)
• House of the Silver Wedding (1891-93)
• Tombs along via Nolana (1886-87)
• Tombs along The Stabian Way (1889)

Discoveries made between 1893 and 1910:

• House of the Vettii (1894-95)
• House of M. Lucretius Fronto (1895)
• House of the Golden Cupids (1895; 1903-5)
• Stretch of wall between towers X and XI (1897-99)
• Temple of Venus Pompeiana (1897-98)
• Samplings at the Temple of Jupiter (1897-98)
• Samplings at the Temple of Apollo (1897-98)
• Samplings outside the Vesuvian Gate (1897)
• Castellum aquae at the Vesuvian Gate (1901-2)
• House of the Ara Massima (1903)
• House of the Gladiators (1899; 1905-6)

See also

• Le Antichità di Ercolano
• Observations upon the Antiquities of the Town of Herculaneum
• Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum
• Secret Museum
• Erotic art