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Have you ever heard of the ancient Italian city called Pompeii?Pompeii was a large and thriving city that was destroyed when a volcanonamed Mt. Vesuvius erupted, killing many of the city's inhabitants andleaving behind a perfectly preserved example of ancient life in theMediterranean.
What was Pompeii like before the explosion?
Pompeii was a city of 20,000 residents. In many ways it was veryprogressive: Pompeii had indoor running water, a thriving marketplace, anamphitheatre for entertainment and a structured government. The homes of thewealthiest citizens reveal beautiful works of art, particularly frescoes. Pompeiialso contained public baths, cobblestone streets and many private shops whereits residents could pumhase almost anything they wanted. Since Pompeii was aport city, located on the blue waters of the Bay of Naples, the people who livedthere could take advantage of the many ships that made port in Pompeii. Theybrought goods from many other exotic locations, to trade and sell in Pompeii andother Roman cities.
The people themselves were typical of the Roman Empire at that time.There were several classes in Roman society, starting with the very wealthyand ending with slaves. The slaves were usually people who had been capturedand enslaved following a war. They served the wealthier Romans and were thelowest class of people in Roman society.
On August 24, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius literally blew its top, spewing tonsof molten ash, pumice and sulfuric gas miles into the atmosphere. A"firestorm"of poisonous vapors and molten debris engulfed the surrounding area suffocatingthe inhabitants of the neighboring Roman resort cities of Pompeii, Herculaneumand Stabiae. Tons of falling debris filled the streets until nothing remainedto be seen of the once thriving communities. The cities remained buried andundiscovered for almost 1700 years.
An ancient voice reaches out from the past to tell us of the disaster. Thisvoice belongs to Pliny the Younger whose letters describe his experience duringthe eruption while he was staying in the home of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Theelder Pliny was an official in the Roman Court, in charge of the fleet in the areaof the Bay of Naples and a naturalist. Pliny the Younger's letters were discoveredin the 16th century.
Wrath of the gods
A few years after the event, Pliny wrote to a friend,Cornelius Tacitus, describing the happenings of late August79 AD when the eruption of Vesuvius obliterated Pompeii,killed his uncle and almost destroyed his family. At thetime, Pliney was eighteen and living at his uncle's villa inthe town of Misenum. Here are some excerpts:
"My uncle was stationed at Misenum, in activecommand of the fleet. On 24 August, in the early afternoon,my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual sizeand appearance.... He called for his shoes and climbedup to a place which would give him the best view of the phenomenon. It was not clear at that distance from whichmountain the cloud was rising (it was afterwards known tobe Vesuvius); its general appearance can best be expressed asbeing like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on asort of trunk and then split off into branches
...My uncle decided to go down to the shore andinvestigate on the spot the possibility of any escape by sea, buthe found the waves still wild and dangerous.... Then the flamesand smell of sulphur which gave warning of the approachingfire drove the others to take flight and roused him [my uncle]to stand up. He stood leaning on two slaves and then suddenlycollapsed, 1 imagine because the dense fumes choked hisbreathing by blocking his windpipe.... When daylight returnedon the 26th-two days after the last day he had been seen--hisbody was found intact and uninjured, still fully clothed andlooking more like sleep than death."
Shrieks of the people
In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny describes what happened to him and to hismother during the second day of the disaster:
"Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. 1 looked round: a denseblack cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. 'Letus leave the road while we can still see,' I said, 'or we shall be knocked down andtrampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.' We had scarcely sat down torest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if thelamp had been put out in a closed room.
You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shoutingof men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, tryingto recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate...and that theuniverse was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
...We rose from time to time and shook them [the ashes] off; otherwise weshould have been buried and crushed beneath their weight. I could boast that nota groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, but I admit that I derived somepoor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dyingwith me and I with it.
That day, in the city of Pompeii, several hundred inhabitants died that day intheir hmnes and in the streets. The rest fled toward the sea.
Pompeii excavation highlights
At Pompeii, excavation has been underway for several hundredyears. Many teams of archaeologists have worked on the site. AtPompeii, there are still many, many areas yet to be uncovered.According to a recent estimate by Pompeii's administrators,excavations at the site since the eighteenth century have uncoveredabout 44 hectares of the city (equivalent to about 74 football fields),including 1,500 buildings. They estimate the total cost of excavationat about 260 million Euros. Many of the artifacts found in Pompeii arein museums, notably the one in Naples. Sadly, about 2,000 bodies were discovered, their outlines prserved forever by the hardened ash,mud and debris.
The dig for riches
Buried in 79 AD under six metres of ash and rock (equivalentto a modern two storey building), Pompeii was largely undisturbeduntil 1748. It was the Bourbon king Charles lli who requested the firstofficial excavation. He hoped to unearth treasures that would increasethe fame and prestige of the royal court.
Excavating a museum city
Archaeological work on the site has continued ever since,although its pace, purpose and execution have changed considerablyover the years. Initially, the practice was to tunnel down, removeany valuables, and then refill the hole. By the end of the eighteenthcentury, those in charge were starting to leave the buildings in viewand many of the objects in place. Pompeii was slowly becoming whatit is today: a museum-city open to visitors.
The method of removing dirt from the site also evolved over theyears. Initially, dirt was removed by bucket-brlgades. The bucketswere later replaced by wheelbarrows and carts. At the beginning of thetwentieth century, a small rail line was added.
The human casts
In 1861, Giuseppe Fiorelli became the project's director.Under his guidance, exploration became more methodical, andfrescoes were left in place rather than removed and shipped toNaples. Fiorelli was also responsible for the now-famous plastercasts of Pompeii's victims. Many of dead were encased in a slurryof ashes and rain. Eventually, the ashes dried hard and the bodiesturned to dust, leaving cavities in the thick layer of volcanicmaterial. Fiorelli decided to pour liquid plaster into the cavities inhopes of reproducing the images of the victims, frozen in the lastmoments of their lives. The technique worked remarkably well,revealing facial features, folds in clothing and even hairstyles.
The discovery uncovered a city frozen in time. The city isso well preserved that the hum of a normal day's activity seemsto echo in the stone streets as you wander among its houses,temples, punic buildings and amphitheatres, and not just becauseMr. Vesuvius looms close by. Human tragedy notwithstanding,archaeologists and historians have been left with a perfectlypreserved city, from the days when the Roman Empire was at itszenith.
What was Pompeii like before the explosion?
Pompeii was a city of 20,000 residents. In many ways it was veryprogressive: Pompeii had indoor running water, a thriving marketplace, anamphitheatre for entertainment and a structured government. The homes of thewealthiest citizens reveal beautiful works of art, particularly frescoes. Pompeiialso contained public baths, cobblestone streets and many private shops whereits residents could pumhase almost anything they wanted. Since Pompeii was aport city, located on the blue waters of the Bay of Naples, the people who livedthere could take advantage of the many ships that made port in Pompeii. Theybrought goods from many other exotic locations, to trade and sell in Pompeii andother Roman cities.
The people themselves were typical of the Roman Empire at that time.There were several classes in Roman society, starting with the very wealthyand ending with slaves. The slaves were usually people who had been capturedand enslaved following a war. They served the wealthier Romans and were thelowest class of people in Roman society.
On August 24, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius literally blew its top, spewing tonsof molten ash, pumice and sulfuric gas miles into the atmosphere. A"firestorm"of poisonous vapors and molten debris engulfed the surrounding area suffocatingthe inhabitants of the neighboring Roman resort cities of Pompeii, Herculaneumand Stabiae. Tons of falling debris filled the streets until nothing remainedto be seen of the once thriving communities. The cities remained buried andundiscovered for almost 1700 years.
An ancient voice reaches out from the past to tell us of the disaster. Thisvoice belongs to Pliny the Younger whose letters describe his experience duringthe eruption while he was staying in the home of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Theelder Pliny was an official in the Roman Court, in charge of the fleet in the areaof the Bay of Naples and a naturalist. Pliny the Younger's letters were discoveredin the 16th century.
Wrath of the gods
A few years after the event, Pliny wrote to a friend,Cornelius Tacitus, describing the happenings of late August79 AD when the eruption of Vesuvius obliterated Pompeii,killed his uncle and almost destroyed his family. At thetime, Pliney was eighteen and living at his uncle's villa inthe town of Misenum. Here are some excerpts:
"My uncle was stationed at Misenum, in activecommand of the fleet. On 24 August, in the early afternoon,my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual sizeand appearance.... He called for his shoes and climbedup to a place which would give him the best view of the phenomenon. It was not clear at that distance from whichmountain the cloud was rising (it was afterwards known tobe Vesuvius); its general appearance can best be expressed asbeing like an umbrella pine, for it rose to a great height on asort of trunk and then split off into branches
...My uncle decided to go down to the shore andinvestigate on the spot the possibility of any escape by sea, buthe found the waves still wild and dangerous.... Then the flamesand smell of sulphur which gave warning of the approachingfire drove the others to take flight and roused him [my uncle]to stand up. He stood leaning on two slaves and then suddenlycollapsed, 1 imagine because the dense fumes choked hisbreathing by blocking his windpipe.... When daylight returnedon the 26th-two days after the last day he had been seen--hisbody was found intact and uninjured, still fully clothed andlooking more like sleep than death."
Shrieks of the people
In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny describes what happened to him and to hismother during the second day of the disaster:
"Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. 1 looked round: a denseblack cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. 'Letus leave the road while we can still see,' I said, 'or we shall be knocked down andtrampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.' We had scarcely sat down torest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if thelamp had been put out in a closed room.
You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shoutingof men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, tryingto recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate...and that theuniverse was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
...We rose from time to time and shook them [the ashes] off; otherwise weshould have been buried and crushed beneath their weight. I could boast that nota groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, but I admit that I derived somepoor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dyingwith me and I with it.
That day, in the city of Pompeii, several hundred inhabitants died that day intheir hmnes and in the streets. The rest fled toward the sea.
Pompeii excavation highlights
At Pompeii, excavation has been underway for several hundredyears. Many teams of archaeologists have worked on the site. AtPompeii, there are still many, many areas yet to be uncovered.According to a recent estimate by Pompeii's administrators,excavations at the site since the eighteenth century have uncoveredabout 44 hectares of the city (equivalent to about 74 football fields),including 1,500 buildings. They estimate the total cost of excavationat about 260 million Euros. Many of the artifacts found in Pompeii arein museums, notably the one in Naples. Sadly, about 2,000 bodies were discovered, their outlines prserved forever by the hardened ash,mud and debris.
The dig for riches
Buried in 79 AD under six metres of ash and rock (equivalentto a modern two storey building), Pompeii was largely undisturbeduntil 1748. It was the Bourbon king Charles lli who requested the firstofficial excavation. He hoped to unearth treasures that would increasethe fame and prestige of the royal court.
Excavating a museum city
Archaeological work on the site has continued ever since,although its pace, purpose and execution have changed considerablyover the years. Initially, the practice was to tunnel down, removeany valuables, and then refill the hole. By the end of the eighteenthcentury, those in charge were starting to leave the buildings in viewand many of the objects in place. Pompeii was slowly becoming whatit is today: a museum-city open to visitors.
The method of removing dirt from the site also evolved over theyears. Initially, dirt was removed by bucket-brlgades. The bucketswere later replaced by wheelbarrows and carts. At the beginning of thetwentieth century, a small rail line was added.
The human casts
In 1861, Giuseppe Fiorelli became the project's director.Under his guidance, exploration became more methodical, andfrescoes were left in place rather than removed and shipped toNaples. Fiorelli was also responsible for the now-famous plastercasts of Pompeii's victims. Many of dead were encased in a slurryof ashes and rain. Eventually, the ashes dried hard and the bodiesturned to dust, leaving cavities in the thick layer of volcanicmaterial. Fiorelli decided to pour liquid plaster into the cavities inhopes of reproducing the images of the victims, frozen in the lastmoments of their lives. The technique worked remarkably well,revealing facial features, folds in clothing and even hairstyles.
The discovery uncovered a city frozen in time. The city isso well preserved that the hum of a normal day's activity seemsto echo in the stone streets as you wander among its houses,temples, punic buildings and amphitheatres, and not just becauseMr. Vesuvius looms close by. Human tragedy notwithstanding,archaeologists and historians have been left with a perfectlypreserved city, from the days when the Roman Empire was at itszenith.