Pompeii: A Snapshot of Ancient Roman Life

BY GRAHAM LAND

Made From History

In August of 79 AD Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering the Roman city of Pompeii in 4 – 6 metres of pumice and ash. The nearby town of Herculaneum met a similar fate.

 Of the 11,000-strong population at the time, it is estimated that only around 2,000 survived the first eruption, while most of the rest perished in the second, which was even more powerful. The preservation of the site was so extensive because rain mixed with the fallen ash and formed a sort of epoxy mud, which then hardened.

 What was a large-scale natural disaster for the ancient residents of Pompeii turned out to be a miracle in archaeological terms, due to the incredible conservation of the city.

Ash moulds preserved human forms at the time of death. Credit: Sören Bleikertz (Wikimedia Commons)

 Written Records of Pompeii

You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognise them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
—Pliny the Younger

Before the rediscovery of the site in 1599, the city and its destruction were known only through written records. Both Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger wrote about the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of Pompeii. Pliny the Elder described seeing a large cloud from across the bay, and as a commander in the Roman Navy, embarked on a nautical exploration of the area. He ultimately died, probably from inhaling sulphuric gases and ash.

 Pliny the Younger’s letters to the historian Tacitus relate the first and second eruptions as well as the death of his uncle. He describes residents struggling to escape the waves of ash and how the rains later mixed with the fallen ash.

 An Incredible Window into Ancient Roman Culture

A house in Pompeii. Credit: Sean Hayford O’Leary (Wikimedia Commons)

 Though much about Ancient Roman culture and society was recorded in art and the written word, these media are purposeful, thought-out ways of transmitting information. Contrastingly, the disaster at Pompeii and Herculaneum provides a spontaneous and accurate 3-dimensional snapshot of ordinary life in a Roman city.

 Thanks to the temperamental geological nature of Vesuvius, ornate paintings and gladiator graffiti alike have been preserved for two millennia. The city’s taverns, brothels, villas and theatres were captured in time. Bread was even sealed in bakery ovens. There is simply no archaeological parallel to Pompeii as nothing comparable has survived in such a way or for such a long time, which so accurately preserves the lives of ordinary ancient people.

 Most, if not all, the buildings and artefacts of Pompeii would have been lucky to last 100 years if not for the eruption. Instead they have survived for nearly 2,000.

 What Survived in Pompeii?
Examples of preservation at Pompeii include such diverse treasures as the Temple of Isis and a complementary wall painting depicting how the Egyptian goddess was worshiped there; a large collection of glassware; animal-powered rotary mills; practically intact houses; a remarkably well-conserved forum baths and even carbonised chicken eggs.

A fresco shows a young woman holding a stylus and wooden tablets

 Paintings range from a series of erotic frescos to a fine depiction of a young woman writing on wooden tablets with a stylus, a banquet scene and a baker selling bread. A somewhat more crude painting, though just as valuable in terms of history and archaeology, is from a city tavern and shows men engaging in gameplay.

 A Remnant of the Ancient Past Faces an Uncertain Future
While the ancient site is still being excavated, it is more vulnerable to damage than it was all those years buried under ash. UNESCO has expressed concerns that the Pompeii site has suffered from vandalism and a general decline due to poor upkeep and a lack of protection from the elements.

 Though most of the frescos have been rehoused in museums, the architecture of the city remains exposed and requires safeguarding as it is a treasure not just of Italy, but of the world.

Pompeiian gladiator graffiti

Gladiator Fights Revealed in Ancient Graffiti

Live Science

Graffiti discovered in the ancient city of Aphrodisias shows gladiator fights between a retiarius (a gladiator armed with a trident and net) and a secutor (gladiator equipped with a sword and shield). Credit: Drawing by Nicholas Quiring, photograph courtesy Angelos Chaniotis

Hundreds of graffiti messages engraved into stone in the ancient city of Aphrodisias, in modern-day Turkey, have been discovered and deciphered, revealing what life was like there over 1,500 years ago, researchers say.
The graffiti touches on many aspects of the city's life, including gladiator combat, chariot racing, religious fighting and sex. The markings date to a time when the Roman and Byzantine empires ruled over the city.
"Hundreds of graffiti, scratched or chiseled on stone, have been preserved in Aphrodisias — more than in most other cities of the Roman East(an area which includes Greece and part of the Middle East)," said Angelos Chaniotis, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton New Jersey, in a lecture he gave recently at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.

"Graffiti are the products of instantaneous situations, often creatures of the night, scratched by people amused, excited, agitated, perhaps drunk. This is why they are so hard to interpret," Chaniotis said. "But this is why they are so valuable. They are records of voices and feelings on stone." [See Photos of the Graffiti in the Ancient City of Aphrodisias]
The graffiti includes sexual imagery, with one plaque showing numerous penises. "A plaque built into the city wall has representations of phalluses of various sizes and positions and employed in a variety of ways," Chaniotis said.
Trident man vs. sword man
The graffiti also includes many depictions of gladiators. Although the city was part of the Roman Empire, the people of Aphrodisias mainly spoke Greek. The graffiti is evidence that people living in Greek-speaking cities embraced gladiator fighting, Chaniotis said.
"Pictorial graffiti connected with gladiatorial combat are very numerous," he said. "And this abundance of images leaves little doubt about the great popularity of the most brutal contribution of the Romans to the culture of the Greek east." [Photos: Gladiators of the Roman Empire]

Some of the most interesting gladiator graffiti was found on a plaque in the city's stadium where gladiator fights took place. The plaque depicts battles between two combatants: a retiarius (a type of gladiator armed with a trident and net) and a secutor (a type of gladiator equipped with a sword and shield).
One scene on the plaque shows the retiarius emerging victorious, holding a trident over his head, the weapon pointed toward the wounded secutor. On the same plaque, another scene shows the secutor chasing a fleeing retiarius. Still another image shows the two types of gladiators locked in combat, a referee overseeing the fight.
"Probably a spectator has sketched scenes he had seen in the arena," Chaniotis said. The images offer "an insight (on) the perspective of the contemporary spectator. The man who went to the arena in order to experience the thrill and joy of watching — from a safe distance — other people die."
Chariot-racing rivalry
Chariot racing is another popular subject in the graffiti. The city had three chariot-racing clubs competing against each other, records show.
The south market, which included a public park with a pool and porticoes, was a popular place for chariot-racing fans to hang outthe graffiti shows. It may be "where the clubhouses of the factions of the hippodrome were located — the reds, the greens, the blues," said Chaniotis, referring to the names of the different racing clubs.
The graffiti includes boastful messages after a club won and lamentations when a club was having a bad time. "Victory for the red," reads one graffiti; "bad years for the greens," says another; "the fortune of the blues prevails," reads a third.
Three religions
Religion was also depicted in the city's graffiti. "Christians, Jews and a strong group of philosophically educated followers of the polytheistic religions competed in Aphrodisias for the support of those who were asking the same questions: Is there a god? How can we attain a better afterlife?" said Chaniotis.
Graffiti was one way in which these groups competed. Archaeologists have found the remains of statues representing governors (or other elite persons) who supported polytheistic beliefs. Christians had registered their disapproval of such religions by carving abbreviations on the statues thatmean"Mary gives birth to Jesus," refuting the idea that many gods existed.
Those who followed polytheistic beliefs carved graffiti of their own.
"To the Christian symbol of the cross, the followers of the old religion responded by engraving their own symbol, the double axe," said Chaniotis, noting that this object was a symbol of Carian Zeus (a god), and is seen on the city's coins.
Aphrodisias also boasted a sizable Jewish population. Many Jewish traders set up shop in an abandoned temple complex known as the Sebasteion.
Among the graffiti found there is a depiction of a Hanukkah menorah, a nine-candle lamp that would be lit during the Jewish festival. "This may be one of the earliest representations of a Hanukkah menorah that we know from ancient times," said Chaniotis.
End of an era
Most of the graffiti Chaniotis recorded dates between roughly A.D. 350 and A.D. 500, appearing to decline around the time Justinian became emperor of the Byzantine Empire, in A.D. 527.
In the decades that followed, Justinian restricted or banned polytheistic and Jewish practices. Aphrodisias, which had been named after the goddess Aphrodite, was renamed Stauropolis. Polytheistic and Jewish imagery, including some of the graffiti, was destroyed.
But while the city was abandoned in the seventh century, the graffiti left by the people remains today. "Through the graffiti, the petrified voices and feelings of the Aphrodisians still reach us, and they still matter," Chaniotis said.
The lecture by Chaniotis was the keynote address given at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of Canada.

1,900-Year-Old Ritual Bath Found Defaced by World War II Graffiti

By Kelly Dickerson

During World War Two, soldiers scrawled a message across the ceiling of an ancient water cistern. Credit: Assaf Peretz/IAA

Archaeologists recently unearthed an ancient Jewish ritual bath defaced with World War II-era graffiti.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) discovered a 1,900-year-old ritual bath (called a "miqwe" or mikveh) and a 1,700-year-old water cistern at the Ha'Ela Junction of Highway 38 in Israel while a construction project to widen the major thoroughfare was underway.
But archaeologists were surprised to discover that the ancient artifacts had been defaced — Australian World War II soldiers had etched graffiti into the exposed ceiling of the water cistern. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

"The finds from this excavation allow us to reconstruct a double story —about the Jewish settlement in the second century C.E. [Christian Era, or A.D.], probably against the background of the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt, and another story, no less fascinating, about a group of Australian soldiers who visited the site [about] 1,700 years later and left their mark there," Yoav Tsur, excavation director for the IAA,said in a statement.
Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist at the IAA, deciphered the graffiti scrawled across the ceiling of the cistern. The message was signed "Cpl Scarlett and Walsh," with the initials "RAE," two numbers and the date "30/05/1940."
Peretz and the other archaeologists then had to do a little detective work to figure out the identities of Scarlett and Walsh. "Cpl" stands for the military rank "corporal," and the initials "RAE" represent the Royal Australian Engineers, the researchers said. The two numbers were found to be soldier serial numbers, and they allowed the archaeologists to identify the two graffiti artists as Cpl. Philip William Scarlett and Patrick Raphael Walsh.
Scarlett and Walsh belonged to the Sixth Division of the Australian Army and were training in the area before their scheduled deployment to fight on the frontlines in France. However, France surrendered before the division's ship date, so Scarlett and Walsh were sent to Egypt instead in October 1940 to fight in the Western Desert, located west of the Nile Valley. Both men survived World War II; Scarlett died in 1970, at age 51, and Walsh died in 2005, at age 95.
"If the relatives of these people are acquainted with the story, we'll be happy if they contact us, and we'll share with them the warm greetings left behind by Scarlett and Walsh," Peretz said in a statement.
The ancient ritual bath has five steps, and the top step acted as a bench where people could sit at the edge of the pool, Tsur said. Archaeologists also found pots and jugs scattered around the bath. The IAA suspects the ritual bath stopped being used in the early second century A.D., after the Bar Kokhba revolt, which was the last battle that pitted the Jews against their persecutors in the Roman Empire.
The huge water cistern where the graffiti was found used to feed the nearby ritual bath. After the bath stopped being used, people likely enlarged the cistern's cavity and used it as a water vat, according to the archaeologists.
During construction projects in this region, it's fairly common to uncover ancient artifacts. Several archaeological sites already exist alongside Highway 38, which connects Judea to the city of Beit Shemesh. In November 2013, construction along the highway revealed a 10,000-year-old house. Other construction projects this year have uncovered a 6th-century monastery and a hoard of bronze coins that date back to the Great Revolt, a Jewish uprising against the Romans about 2,000 years ago.
The construction company working on widening the highway has agreed to preserve the site of the ancient ritual bath and will incorporate it as part of the natural landscape alongside the road, the archaeologists said.

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2,500-year-old erotic graffiti found in unlikely setting on Aegean island

Racy inscriptions and phalluses carved into Astypalaia's rocky peninsula shed light on very private lives of ancient Greece

Helena Smith

The erotic graffiti on Astypalaia also highlighted the extent of literacy at a time when the Acropolis in Athens had yet to be built. Photograph: Helena Smith

Wild, windswept, rocky and remote, Astypalaia is not an obvious place for the unearthing of some of the world's earliest erotic graffiti.
Certainly, Dr Andreas Vlachopoulos, a specialist in prehistoric archaeology, didn't think so when he began fieldwork on the Aegean island four years ago. Until he chanced upon a couple of racy inscriptions and large phalluses carved into Astypalaia's rocky peninsula at Vathy. The inscriptions, both dating to the fifth and sixth centuries BC, were "so monumental in scale" – and so tantalisingly clear – he was left in no doubt of the motivation behind the artworks.
"They were what I would call triumphant inscriptions," said the Princeton-trained professor who found them while introducing students to the ancient island world of the Aegean. "They claimed their own space in large letters that not only expressed sexual desire but talked about the act of sex itself," he told the Guardian. "And that is very, very rare."
Chiselled into the outcrops of dolomite limestone that dot the cape, the inscriptions have provided invaluable insight into the private lives of those who inhabited archaic and classical Greece. One, believed to have been carved in the mid-sixth century BC, proclaimed: "Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona (Νικασίτιμος οἶφε Τιμίονα).
"We know that in ancient Greece sexual desire between men was not a taboo," added Dr Vlachopoulos, who returned to the far-flung island last week to resume work with a team of topographers, photographers, conservationists and students. "But this graffiti … is not just among the earliest ever discovered. By using the verb in the past continuous [tense], it clearly says that these two men were making love over a long period of time, emphasising the sexual act in a way that is highly unusual in erotic artwork. "
Found at the highest point of the promontory overlooking the Bay of Vathy on the island's north-western tip, the inscription has led the archaeologist to believe that soldiers may once have been garrisoned there.
Two penises engraved into limestone beneath the name of Dion, and dating to the fifth century BC, were also discovered at lower heights of the cape. "They would seem to allude to similar behaviour on the part of Dion," said Vlachopoulos.
The epigrapher, Angelos Matthaiou, said the graffiti had not only shed light on the very personal lives of the ancients but highlighted the extent of literacy at a time when the Acropolis in Athens had yet to be built. "Whoever wrote the erotic inscription referring to Timiona was very well trained in writing," said Matthaiou, for more than 25 years the general secretary at the Greek Epigraphic Society. "The letters have been very skillfully inscribed on the face of the rock, evidence that it was not just philosophers, scholars and historians who were trained in the art of writing but ordinary people living on islands too."
Other rock art found at the site include carvings depicting oared ships, daggers and spirals – all still discernible despite exposure to the erosive effects of wind and sea.
As the best-known motif of early Cycladic art representing the waves of the sea, spirals symbolised perpetual motion as the driving force in the life and thought of island communities.
"We know that Greek islands were inhabited by the third millienium BC., but what we have found is evidence that, even then, people were using a coded language of symbols and imagery that was quite sophisticated," said Dr Vlachopoulos.
Unit recently, Astypalaia has been better known for its ancient cemeteries of mass graves containing the remains of newborn infants. Now erotica has to be added to that sorry tale.
"Few Greek islands have been properly explored or excavated and these findings are testimony to why it is so important that they are," said the archaeologist.
• This article was amended on 8 July 2014. The headline claimed it was the world's oldest erotic graffiti. As stated in the article, it is only some of the world's oldest such artwork. This has been corrected.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/06/worlds-earliest-erotic-graffiti-astypalaia-classical-greece
 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/06/worlds-earliest-erotic-graffiti-astypalaia-classical-greece