Timeless Pompeii: Digging into Ancient Rome: Part 6

Stepping stones and chariot grooves in the road

When I last visited Pompeii I crawled the open areas of the ruins like an aardvark hunting for ants. I was interested in everything from the remains of calcified water dripping over a villa wall to the chariot wheel grooves in the road made over centuries of use. Ok, I geeked out.  Happy now?

You’ve all seen the astonishing pictures so far. The place was frozen in time for all of us. It’s a veritable archeological dig for the uninitiated. You can really get lost in the history and the academia of it all.

If you study history though, you know that it has a way of bringing the humanity back to the forefront in many different ways. By way of example, when they were digging up the garrison area of Hadrian’s wall in northern England. They discovered the most mundane artifacts imaginable…and the most heartwarming.

The archeologists found “letters” from home. When the average American gives a passing thought to what a Roman soldier was the first thing that may come to mind is tough, hardy and bloodthirsty (I think soldiers are sometimes confused with gladiators). The letters demonstrated anything but bloodthirstiness.

The letters were mostly from family. They spoke of a families pride or admonished the recipient to keep good spirits and to not let their health go. They even recounted the contents of “care packages” one stating that here were new socks to replace the ones this person usually ran through. If socks with holes can’t make the contemporary person to relate to the humans that make up ancient Rome then nothing will.

Beautifully preserved

Unless you visit Pompeii. As I said in an earlier post, Pompeii was buried in a layer of pumice and ash twenty feet deep in places. Over the 17 centuries this layer hardened into a solid mass. The effect o this was of course to provide a blanket that preserved everything: structures, pottery, tools, artwork…and bodies.

To be precise, the bodies were not preserved. The image of the body (person) was preserved. When the people (and animals) of Pompeii succumbed to the flash heat, they lay where they died. The layer of ash and pumice built up around them and like the site itself, were persevered for a time.

The human body being obviously much less resilient than the brick of the town itself, it eventually rotted and deteriorated leaving a void or hole in the now solid covering. These voids were found in the process of excavating the site. It was then that some genius came up with the idea of pouring something like Plaster of Paris in to the void! Well, can you blame them? I’d be damn curious too!

What they found was a physical record of agonizing death. The voids were the shape and image of the bodies that were covered in the ash. The most astonishing feature of all of them is the utter humanity of their final moments.

To be sure, the images are not something that would enable you to identify a specific person. The plaster was not capable of that kind of fine detail. Perhaps that is best because the basic images pull at your heart just the same.

The tale that the plaster images tell is as shocking as they are touching. In many instances it was obvious that fathers were protecting mothers and mothers children. In one image you can plainly see the image of a family attempting to protect themselves from the erupting volcano and falling ash.

In certain images the you can plainly see the rictus of pain on the face of what appears to be a male in the throws of death

Poor Little Guy

Strangely, the plaster mold I found the most compelling was that of a pompeian who was caught in his binds during the eruption.  There have always been Pompeian dogs. There are Pompeian dogs today. Knowing them today makes me feel for them then. Its a tough picture.

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Tagged as: Ancient, ancient rome, body, chariot wheel, Digging, everything, garrison area, humanity, letters from home, many different ways, new socks, northern england, passing thought, person, Plaster, pompeian, pompeii, road, roman soldier, time, Timeless