Pompeii by Mary Beard

Pompeii by Mary Beard 

Marry Beard's Pompeii succeeds in several quite different and sometimes surprising ways. this is often a guidebook, a history, a survey of social relations, an outline of culture and religion, a listing and analysis of art, and an archaeological record. it's also a superb read, highly informative, enlighteningly descriptive and scrupulously accurate.

Pompeii may be a complicated site. initially glance, it's going to appear to be very simple. at some point in 79 AD a coastal town in modern-day Campania, near Naples, which was then at the guts of a Greco-Roman culture, was buried under volcanic ash that spread from the eruption of the nearby Vesuvius . The town was completely destroyed, smothered under metres of ash. The disaster progressed quickly giving the town's inhabitants little chance of escape, including an opportunity to collect their possessions. This naive description might thus suggest that each one archaeologists got to do is uncover what the ash buried, and first century life during a Roman town are going to be revealed.

The reality, however, is somewhat different. The volcano did erupt and did cause the top of Pompeii. But the town had previously in AD 62 suffered an earthquake, which had damaged many buildings, a number of which was still not repaired in AD79. And Pompeii has been excavated repeatedly . Some digs a few of centuries ago extracted treasures for the titillation of monarchs, before volcanic ash, original construction materials and far of the historical and other material was randomly piled back to fill the holes. On the opposite hand, some areas haven't been excavated et al. still wait to be uncovered, but possibly not for the primary time. Much add previous centuries was undocumented, so who would know? Only the finds, and just some of these , were lodged in museums, and therefore the provenance of the many of these remains unclear.

Such a sophisticated history presents tremendous difficulties for contemporary archaeologists. There are many layers of possible interpretation, many potential complications. an excellent strength of Mary Beard's book is that she always acknowledges these difficulties and, where simplistic, convenient or fashionable positions might create more attractive copy, consistently she is cautious together with her assertions and thought of in her conclusions. Refreshingly, where evidence is lacking, contradictory or merely hospitable interpretation, she usually leaves the matter open, thus allowing the reader to understand how hard it's to be definitive about the unknown.

Descriptions of lifestyle within the first century AD are in some ways reassuringly familiar, with one significant exception. the fashionable reader could also be rather shocked by what proportion lifestyle seems appeared to revolve around sex. But Mary beard does means several times that this might be an overstatement. One is tempted to imagine how a contemporary town could be seen, if, once buried and uncovered, all that would be identified were advertising hoardings along a street where the sole shop to not be obliterated sold sex toys. Our contemporary lack of data about Pompeii's inhabitants is illustrated by our inability to make a decision what may need been stored within the terracotta jars that were built into many of the town's shop fronts. Mary Beard points out that theories they could have contained wine or oil are undermined by the straightforward incontrovertible fact that terracotta is porous, so it's more likely they contained dry goods. In one shop, a jar may are a till, because it had been found to contain a stash of small coins. But who knows whether the shop's owner, frightened by a sudden eruption, merely tipped a box of small coins into the jar during a vain plan to fill the box with more valuable possessions which may be carried?

The area of life that was clearly different in first century AD was that of faith and beliefs. There appeared to be a market in gods, also together in goods, and most buildings seem to possess paintings or altars dedicated to a panoply of deities, drawn from several different traditions. Whether people did pick and choose, or whether people's origins or ethnicity dictated allegiance, we simply don't know.

Pompeii clearly did have its own version of mass entertainment, both in theatre and amphitheatre. There was even a famous riot after a disputed contest, where supporters from a close-by town fought with locals. It made regional news. There was also an area language that wasn't Latin, but we've precious little of its literature.

A concept such a slavery, which within the modern mind is inextricably linked with the trade of recent colonial powers, is yet one more aspect of ancient Roman life that's more complicated than contemporary assumptions allow. Mary Beard regularly refers to the complexity of those relationships throughout the text and long before then end we feel we actually have learned something few "> a few culture that quite suddenly feels far more distant than a mere couple of millennia.

Mary Beard's Pompeii may be a brilliant book that's worth reading in itself. But anyone who has visited or plans to go to the location will find it brings the experience or memory completely to life. it's a comprehensive description of the location and its culture, but makes clear that there are still stones to be turned. Unusually, however, readers who previously may need thought they were well-informed on the history, culture and archaeology of Pompei might just find, after reading this book, that they knew rather but they thought.

Philip Spires may be a uthor of an enquiry for Donald Cottee is a comic tragedy about individualism.