9/12 Thursday
We
are making the trip to Pompeii today, about a half hour by train. For the first
time on our Italian trip, we are surrounded by tourists, including many Americans. Right off the train, the tour
guides and souvenir hustling starts, followed by lines and crowds. We ignore it
all and buy a couple audio guides.
The
site is gigantic, since a full city of 20,000 people once stood here. The
entire place is still an archaeological dig, mapped out in a big numbered grid.
There’s some signage, but not much. We work our way around with our recorders
and map, weaving past the pools of people with their guides. We walk along the
stone streets, looking into the broken ruins, imagining the homes that once
completed the brick frames. The busted-open peak of Mount Vesuvius defines the
skyline to the north, eerily blanketed in a thick cloud, suggesting the
original eruption. Soon after we get started, a cloudburst of rain blows
though. We take shelter with others under the ruins of a stone archway until it
passes.
The
scientists who research Pompeii have been able to describe so much of the daily
life of the people here because of the sudden entirety of the city’s burial. At
one point, we look out over the open field defined by broken columns that was
the agora, and find it still serving its purpose as a place for people to
gather and talk, with today’s visitors walking around, standing in small clusters,
sitting on stone blocks, looking much as it would have in 78AD.
Some
buildings are amazingly intact. We can walk through the bathhouse rooms and see
remnants of the frescos on the walls and the niches where the bathers would
have left their clothes. The floors were heated by a system of hot air ducts
through the walls and below the flooring, with heat coming from a room with a
fire pit. Most of the actual mosaics and artifacts are kept in the Archaeology
Museum in Naples, which we’ll visit later.
The
city center was surrounded by markets: meat sellers, fish mongers, vegetable sellers.
The use of the buildings is revealed by the signature altar to the deity for
each sector. There is one big area for the wool merchants. We learn about the
small “outhouse” room near the entry where a large jug was kept to collect
urine. Wool was soaked in human and animal urine to remove the lanolin.
Fascinating. In the fish market, remains of fish bones in the drains show that
the merchants would clean the fish for their customers at the stand, just as
they do today.
There’s
no indication for it on the street or on the maps, but it’s in this area that
we see the first of the famous plaster casts of the volcano victims, just
there, in glass cases along the back wall. We’ve all seen them in the history
books, but to see them in real life is awesome.
As
we walk through the site, it becomes very clear that this was a bustling,
prosperous and cosmopolitan city, even a popular spot for the tourists of the
day, with hotels and brothels available. There were fine homes, shops, sports,
culture, gardens and arenas. The walls would have been covered with smooth
limestone or marble, and lusciously embellished with mosaics and frescos.
When
we find the amphitheater area, we’re near the entry for the tour buses. We
struggle to claim our small portion of sidewalk against the swarms. We still
manage to see the theater, and sit on the steps, some carved with roman
numerals designating the seat numbers.
We
spend the entire day at the site, returning on the train full of tired
tourists, feeling excited that we’ll be able to see and learn more at the
Archeology Museum tomorrow. We are quite happy to get home to our apartment,
relaxing with salad and risotto on our little terrace, feeling all italiano as we listen to the shouts and
arguments reverberating through the courtyard. One of our neighbors is a very
angry man. What’s the Italian equivalent of “To the MOON Alice!!!?”
1 Video Included
Pompeii
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