POMPEII, ITALY

The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was partially destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Pompeii was lost for nearly 1700 years before its rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana. Today, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with approximately 2,500,000 visitors every year.

This post is part of Julie's Taphophile Tragics meme,
and also part of the Our World Tuesday meme.

Entering the archaeological area

View of the forum 

The amphitheatre

One of the major streets, flanked by shops and houses 

The atrium of one of the villas. Pompeii was a prosperous holiday city and the residents were largely wealthy and patrons of the arts 

A "thermopolium" or take-away shop where the ancient Roman version of "fast food" was sold. Wine was also to be had a-plenty here!

A covered portico 

The private gardens of Pompeii were elaborate and sumptuously decorated

The nascent Venus - a famous fresco in a villa garden

Ancient Roman graves and funerary monuments were situated just outside the city walls and a number of graves are seen here

A fine funerary monument

The Villa of the Mysteries or Villa dei Misteri is a well preserved ruin of a Roman Villa which lies some 400 metres northwest of Pompeii, southern Italy. Although covered with metres of ash and other volcanic material, the villa sustained only minor damage in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and the majority of its walls, ceilings, and most particularly its frescoes survived largely undamaged.

The Villa is named for the paintings in one room of the residence. This space may have been a triclinium, and is decorated with very fine frescoes. Although the actual subject of the frescoes is hotly debated, the most common interpretation of the images is scenes of the initiation of a woman into a special cult of Dionysus, a mystery cult that required specific rites and rituals to become a member. Of all other interpretations, the most notable is that of Paul Veyne, who believes that it depicts a young woman undergoing the rites of marriage.The Villa had both very fine rooms for dining and entertaining and more functional spaces. A wine-press was discovered when the Villa was excavated and has been restored in its original location. It was not uncommon for the homes of the very wealthy to include areas for the production of wine, olive oil, or other agricultural products, especially since many elite Romans owned farmland or orchards in the immediate vicinity of their villas.

Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823–1896) was an Italian archaeologist born in Naples, Italy. His excavations at Pompeii helped preserve the city. 'Fiorelli ... developed the use of plaster casts to recreate the forms of plants and human bodies.' Fiorelli is most famous for his plaster casts, produced by a process named after him: the Fiorelli process. He realised that where a corpse had been buried in ash, it had rotted over time and a cavity remained. Whenever an excavator discovered a cavity, plaster of Paris was poured in and left to harden. The ash around the plaster was then carefully removed, so that a plaster replica of a person at the moment of their death remained. This process gave information about how people had died in the eruption, what they were doing in their final moments and what sort of clothing they wore. Fiorelli also took the topography of the town and divided it into a system of 'regiones', 'insulae' and 'domus' - and he developed the use of plaster casts to recreate the forms of plants and human bodies that had been covered by the volcanic ash, and had then left a hole - shaped in the form of the plant or person - in that ash after putrefaction.

Another plaster cast of a person who died in Pompeii 

Close-up of a plaster cast of a person who died in Pompeii

Karl Briullov (1799–1852) - "The Last Day of Pompeii", 1830 - 1833. Oil on canvas. 456.5 x 651 cm. The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia