For 1,800 years, the streets of Pompeii lay dormant. Ever since the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius razed the city in AD 79, its alleyways, corners, shop fronts and crossroads had slumbered under a layer of volcanic debris. But then, in the second decade of the 20th century, something happened that would breathe life back into Pompeii’s once teeming thoroughfares. That something was the appointment of a new superintendent of archaeological works, a man called Vittorio Spinazzola.
For decades, the daily life of the inhabitants of ancient Pompeii had been examined purely through the city’s private houses and public buildings: its baths, its markets, its temples and bakeries. The streets connecting these places were often overlooked.
All that changed when Spinazzola arrived in Pompeii in 1911. The archaeologist was convinced that excavating the streets could yield rich evidence of daily life in the ancient city. Spinazzola’s predecessors had concentrated on excavating single properties or insula blocks in the western part of the city. Spinazzola, however, took a different approach. He chose to excavate the remaining eastern half-kilometre stretch of the via dell’Abbondanza – the main east-west road that traversed the city – and the facades of the buildings that opened onto it.
By breaking the seal of the undisturbed volcanic deposits from the top downwards, Spinazzola revealed the upper floors and roofs of buildings that fronted onto the street as well as further evidence of life at street level itself. In the words of his son-in-law Salvatore Aurigemma: “No more monotonous… and deserted Pompeiian streets but windows, balconies, canopies and terraces, one after another, as if all life had no purpose but the street.”
This story is from the October 2023 edition of BBC History UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 2023 edition of BBC History UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Aztecs at war
RHIANNON DAVIES discovers why war was so important to the Mesoamerican people - and why they believed a badly cooked meal could prevent a soldier from shooting straight
Towering achievement
NATHEN AMIN explores a 13th-century stronghold that was built to subdue independent-minded Welsh people, yet has since become a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds
Eighteenth-century mushroom ketchup
ELEANOR BARNETT shares her instructions for making a flavourful sauce with roots in south-east Asia
Goodbye to the gilded age
JOHN JACOB WOOLF is won over by an exploration of the Edwardian era, which looks beyond the golden-era cliché to find a nation beset by a sense of unease
The power of the few
Subhadra Das's first book catches two particular waves in current publishing.
The 'badass' icon
One of the problems with biography, if an author is not careful, is that it can quickly become hagiography.
Ghosts of Germany's past
KATJA HOYER is impressed by a study of a nation's attempts to grapple with the crimes it perpetrated during the Second World War
A window onto England's soul
SARAH FOOT has high praise for a book that traces the evolution of English Christianity over the course of 1400 years, through the lives of its greatest thinkers
"There was a general perception that Queen Victoria's mourning was neither normal nor acceptable”
JUDITH FLANDERS talks to Rebecca Franks about her new book, which delves into the customs surrounding dying, death and mourning in Victorian Britain
"Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families"
HIDDEN HISTORIES... KAVITA PURI on the legacy of Canada's residential schools