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THE GOLDEN AGE OF POMPEII

The second century B.C. is the “golden age” of Pompeii, a century in which profound transformations in urban planning, of the main places of worship and of the ways of living, were   recorded.

At this point in history, Puteoli became the main port of Rome and began to perform a function of “port-warehouse”, ie, of a large port with a multiplicity of piers and warehouses where the goods from all over the Mediterranean, especially the Eastern part , were unloaded and stored. From this great “port-warehouse”, redistribution took place on a regional scale, based on a hierarchically subordinate port system in which the “epineion” (emporium) of Pompeii played a central role. Through the course of the Sarno river, this dock redistributed the Mediterranean products to the more internal areas such as Nola, Nocera and Acerra. (1)

This progressive enrichment of Pompeii allowed important urban and architectural innovations in the Vesuvian city, innovations that linked Pompeii to the other allied cities of Rome. These breakthroughs were inspired by the new models of urbanization of “International Hellenism”, which Rome appropriated starting from the second century. B.C.

It is precisely in Samnite Pompeii that this phenomenon of progressive adaptation to the Hellenistic-Roman models developed, that is, in the period before Pompeii became a Sillan colony of 82 BC.

There are many monuments, both public and private, from the second century. B.C. that illustrate the development of the city of Pompeii and the adoption of the models of “International Hellenism”: monumentalization of the Forum, reorganization of the so-called  Triangular Forum, with the construction of the adjacent theater and campus/gymnasium, construction of the first thermal facilities, construction of large private houses with atrium and peristyle. The case of Pompeii is unique: a city timelessly preserved in its entirety, covered  with pumice stones and volcanic ash by the  Vesuvian eruption of 79 Ad.  The city clearly shows us how the process of enriching the urban landscape according to the canons of “International Hellenism” , already in practise in Sicily, also involved the Greek and Italic cities of Romanized Southern Italy. Naturally, in the peninsula the architectural models were filtered from Rome and adapted to both political-administrative and cultural needs of a society that was by now profoundly Romanized. Pompeii and the Campania region, in fact, reproduced some of the oldest examples of monumental building typologies that later, in the height of the imperial era, would be exported from Rome to the provinces, starting from Sicily: theaters, amphitheaters, baths, basilicas, aqueducts. (2)

In Pompeii, local patricians vied with those who came from Rome to practice the “otium” (SEE NOTE) in the maritime villas of Campania, in an “Asiatica luxuria” – this unbridled luxury that was inspired by the grandiose Macedonian courts – was made possible by the new riches of oriental origin. To this end, suburban villas, a new building type, arose, and the new architectural elements with  Greek names or in Greek style, such as the “peristyle”, “exedra”, “diaeta”, “triclinium” and “oecus”, were incorporated in the mansions in the city. .(3)

One of the most sumptuous examples of “domus” (House) built in Pompeii in the 2nd century AD. is the “House of the Faun” with its magnificent mosaic (more than one and a half million tesserae), which represents the decisive moment of the battle of Alexander the Great against Darius III of Persia at Issus, when the Persian king, in the moment of defeat, attempts to flee.

NOTE: This Latin term  had the idea of withdrawing from one’s daily business (negotium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy).

 

 

BIBLIOGRAFIA:

  1. Luana Toniolo  “Commerciare” –in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 231
  2.  Gioacchino Francesco La Torre – Sicilia e Magna Grecia – Editori Laterza 2011 – pag.243
  3. Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976 pp. 33-34

 

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THE ETRUSCAN WOMAN

Women played a very important role in Etruscan society.

Both the practice of Matronymic (a social norm according to which children took their mother’s name) and the participation of women in banquets, unlike the Greek symposia, show how important the woman in Etruscan society was. It also appears that simply having an Etruscan mother was sufficient to ensure a child Etruscan citizenship.

Working with wool was the symbol of women just as working with weapons was that of men. Educating was the destiny of the Etruscan woman, spinning  her emblem.

Moreover, from the end of the 9th century BC, some women also presented a pair of equine bits among their funerary objects: in the necropolis of Veio (Tuscany), for example, there was no substantial numerical difference between the tombs of males and females indicated as wagon holders. Probably the bits in the male graves could indicate war or hunting wagons and those in the female graves could allude to a carriage.

Those women were undoubtedly at the top of the various Villanovan social groups, perhaps the companions of the warrior-chiefs: After all, marriage, at least from the end of the 9th century BC, when relations with different communities within and outside the individual cultural areas are more evident, began to be  considered a means of creating bonds of solidarity or of alliance. Women, much the same as raw or processed materials, or like livestock, could be included in the exchange of gifts or repayments. Female attire was also generally richer than that of males and starting from the second half of the 9th century BC, sumptuous parures characterized certain tombs: the woman adorned with precious goods was herself a valuable asset to be exhibited in order to manifest the “status” of the family group.

 

Excerpt from:   Gilda Bartoloni, “La Cultura Villanoviana. All’inizio della storia etrusca”, Carocci Editore, Roma pag.187
 

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VENUS ANADYOMENE IN POMPEII

 

 

In the ancient world, the ideal of female beauty derived from a Greek canon, from marble sculpted deities by artists who modeled the best  features of various women to create a virtual, ideal and absolute beauty. This ideal beauty, combined with the hairstyles and clothing of the classical tradition, has always been well represented artistically  in Pompeian painting and sculpture.

A work of art which can be considered a real cultural icon of Greek beauty is the famous “Venus  Anadyomene” (from Greek, “Venus Rising From the Sea”), the goddess of love, depicted in the act of rising from the sea and resting her hands on wet hair. Originally it was created by the famous Greek painter Apelles in the 4th century B.C. for the Asklepeion, the temple dedicated to Asclepius, on Cos,  a Greek island facing Turkey. According to the different versions of the story, either Phryne, the model used by the great artist was a very famous hetaera [ among the Greeks, a courtesan, normally a stranger, free or a slave, elegantly dressed and, in general, rather highly cultured], or Campaspe, lover of Alexander the Great.

The painting was later brought to Rome by Augustus, and placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, to evoke the mother of the “gens Iulia” (Strabo 14.2.19). However this masterpiece of Greek art was also very famous in the area of ​​Mount Vesuvius. This is confirmed by an inscription found in Pompeii where the scriptor, the writer, compared his beloved to the Venus of Apelles (CIL IV 6842 = CLE 2057): Si quis non vidi(t) Venerem quam pin[xit Apelles] | pupa mea aspiciat: tali set i[lla nitet].

The wide diffusion of this model is confirmed by the dozens of copies of the Venus  Anadyomene spread among all the social classes of the population, at various artistic levels, from marble and bronze statues, as well as wall frescoes (such as in Pompeii in the House del Prince of Naples – see photo), but it is above all in the decoration on small tools of instrumentum domesticus, in particular on hair pins, where she was represented. Sculpted in bone, they were relatively inexpensive and multi-purpose instruments, widespread even in modest-sized houses, ubiquitous in female beauty care: they served as sharp instruments for applying makeup and also for dividing and styling hair. The hair pins  could remain fixed in the hair to be within easy reach in case of need and were also portable amulets. Such a hair pin, together with an amulet pendant also in the shape of Anadyomene, was found in the house of L. Elvio Severo in Pompeii (1). In addition, the box for ointments and toiletry items in the Imperial house in Pompeii was secured by a bronze padlock in the shape of the same goddess. (2)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Berg, “Donne medico a Pompei?”, in A.Buonopane, F. Cenerini (a cura di), “Donna e lavoro nella documentazione epigrafica” , Atti I seminario sulla condizione femminile nella documentazione epigrafica (Bologna, ottobre 2002), Faenza 2003, pp. 131-154
  2. Ria Berg  “Attrarre” – in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 213-214

 

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THE NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF NAPLES

In 1731 King Charles of Bourbon inherited the famous “Farnese collection” from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese. When the enlightened sovereign ascended the throne of Naples in 1734, he took these splendid works of art with him in dowry to the Parthenopean city. Charles furthermore ordered the excavations of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), which led to the discovery of an impressive number of Roman Art treasures.

However it was only in 1777 that Charles’s son, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, determined by decree to gather these great dynastic collections, (Farnesian, Pompeian and Herculaneum) together in the  “Palazzo dei Vecchi Studi” (the Old University) and earmark them for public use. Moreover, this new building was envisaged as an encyclopedic museum where all human knowledge should be situated: works of art, books, papyri, studios  and even an astronomical observatory. Following the dominant Enlightenment culture, the educational aspect of this museum and its importance as a public utility were emphasized. Consequently,Ferdinand intended to bring together workshops, laboratories, painting, sculpture, and restoration schools and more. It was aimed to create a museum-workshop-school in the building. However, in order to do this, the old “Palazzo degli Studi” required profound changes and, in 1806 when the French arrived, the building was still under restoration.

During the French domination, first Giuseppe Bonaparte, and then Gioacchino Murat, abandoned the museum’s encyclopedic project for nearly 10 years, “reducing” it to a simple venue for the exposition of the imposing Farnese and Bourbon collections.

During  the Napoleonic period, all the leading museums in the territories conquered by the French armies were stripped of their most important masterpieces which were channelled  to the Louvre Museum in Paris. But the Archaeological Museum of Naples (like the Brera Museum in Milan) did not suffer from depletion; in fact it was enriched with famous masterpieces.

Murat sought an autonomous kingdom in Napoleonic Europe. The new director of the Museum, Michele Arditi (1807-1838), immediately showed his worth: first of all he introduced  more severe management of the personnel compared to the previous state of disorder; the obligation and control of daily working hours; respect for a precise work timetable and the prohibition of objects being taken out of the Museum. After the fall of  Murat (1815), during the Bourbon restoration, Ferdinand I again confirmed Michele Arditi as director of this institution which was growing continually.

What clearly made the difference between French and Bourbon management of the Archaeological Museum  was that, with his return, King Ferdinand I explicitly stated that the collections of the Archaeological Museum were his “allodial property” and therefore alienable. The royal sites belonged to the Crown – and were therefore not saleable, – but the collections were property of the king (and therefore privately owned). The idea advanced by the French kings, that artistic masterpieces were  protected by the State, was therefore denied by this declaration of Ferdinand I.

The restored Bourbon monarchy maintained  the original educational and public purpose of the Archaeological Museum of Naples, but at the same time it displayed a mentality not in line with the most modern Enlightenment principles.

Later, only in 1822, would the transfer of the archaeological artifacts from the “Herculaneum Museum” of Portici be completed, but despite all efforts, the Royal Bourbon Museum continued to seem  an overcrowded repository  without any precise exhibition criteria. Infact, the first extensive re-organization only took place during the Unification of Italy under the decisive intervention of Giuseppe Fiorelli.

 

Excerpt from:  Nadia Barrella e Ludovico Solima, Musei da svelare, Luciano editore, Napoli, 2011, pp. 17-23   

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THE MYCENAEANS IN ITALY

 

During the Bronze Age, particularly from the 16th century [from the Middle Bronze Age 1] to the 11th century BC [at the end of the Bronze Age], intense contacts between indigenous groups in Southern Italy and Sicily and the Mycenaeans are confirmed with certainty: this is confirmed by the discovery in modern times of ceramics and metal objects of Aegean production in numerous Italian proto-historic contexts, both inhabited and necropolitan.In the Western Mediterranean the Mycenaeans sought raw materials, especially metals, to satisfy the needs and consumption of the new Peloponnesian aristocracies. The first contacts are documented by ceramics found in the Phlegraean archipelago (Vivara) and in the Aeolian archipelago (Lipari and Filicudi) and, to a lesser extent, in Apulia (in the Gargano and Porto Perone near Taranto). In fact, their traditional route in the Western quadrant of the Mediterranean involved passing through the Strait of Messina and then touching the Aeolian islands before heading into the Gulf of Naples.

However,  the greater intensity of the contacts was established in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C., when the dominion of the Mycenaean kingdoms also extended to Crete.  Ceramics of that period have been found in various areas of the Peninsula and Sicily (especially in the Brindisi area, the Gulf of Taranto, the Ionian Calabria, the Aeolian islands, Ustica, in the area of Syracuse, the area of Agrigento) and even beyond (Sardinia and the Iberian peninsula). However at that historical moment the process was not managed by the Mycenaean centers of the Peloponnese alone, but also involved the islands of Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus. Therefore, at that time, next to the traditional Tyrrhenian route, the Mycenaeans added another, more Southern one, which connected the ports of the Levant (located in Lebanon, Cyprus, Rhodes, along the southern coasts of Crete) with Eastern and Southern Sicily and Southern Sardinia through the intermediate ports of the Nile delta, the coasts of Libya, Malta and Pantelleria. From the 13th century onwards in the most strategic points of these routes, important emporiums were founded by the Mycenaeans, in the past erroneously interpreted as real Mycenaean settlements, almost as  “ante litteram” (primitive) colonies.The collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, between the end of the XIII and the beginning of the XII centuries, caused a slowdown in relations between East and West. In the XI century B.C., as a result of social upheavals and movements of populations involving the Greek continent (the coming of the Dorians), imports ceased altogether and there began, both in the Aegean world and in the Italian peninsula and in Sicily, a long phase of closure. The Phoenicians would inherit from the Mycenaeans of Rhodes and Cyprus a  wealth of knowledge regarding  the resources and moorings of the distant West and about the routes to reach it.

In the late Bronze Age, contacts with the Aegean world modified the indigenous societies of Southern Italy and Sicily, which began to show a hierarchization and concentration of the inhabited areas, the appearance of huts and emerging tombs and of buildings specialized for the storage of foodstuffs, the provision of large quantities of metal, the emergence of specialized artisans (potters and metal workers) and the strengthening of trade and commerce. This would lead to the start of a social stratification process that involved the main areas of Southern Italy and Sicily, which, presented up to the 14th century BC. ( Middle Bronze Age 3) were largely undifferentiated socially. However, between the recent Bronze Age (13th-12th century BC) and the Final Bronze Age (11th-10th century BC) small territorial entities were assimilated into  the simple “chiefdoms”, a model elaborated by Anglo-Saxon archeology, to define communities led by chiefs. These communities were of the order of a few thousand inhabitants, already of a tendentially “proto-urban” nature. However, at this historical point,  the Mycenaean Kingdoms, which were complex “chiefdoms”, cannot be assigned this model, given the lack of princely burials, residences of royal rank and a far more articulated political organization in which the use of writing cannot be disregarded.

 

Excerpt from Gioacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia, Editori Laterza, 2011,   pp 12-16
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SYBARIS AND ITS EMPIRE – part 1

 

 

The colonisation process of Southern Italy and Sicily lasted a couple of centuries and began in the 8th century B.C.

The first Achaean colony seems to have been Sybaris, in the middle of an alluvial plain between the mouths of the Crathis (Crati) river and the Coscìle river, the ancient Sybaris. According to Ephorus of Cyme, a Greek historian – c.  400 – 330 B.C. this Achaean city lived for 210 years and was destroyed in 510 B.C. by Kroton.  It can thus be traced back to 720 B.C. for its foundation. Strabo (VI, C 263) reports that oikistes (see Note) of Sybaris was Is who was a native of Elice, unknown city of Achaea in Greece.

The innumerable studies carried out on the proto-historic centres in the area of Sybaris, confirm that the arrival of the Achaeans in that territory and the subsequent foundation of Sybaris represented a strong impact on the indigenous villages.  All the centers of the early Iron Age (IX-VIII centuries B.C.) were destroyed and abandoned at the end of the 8th century B.C.   But as it happened for Syracuse, very probably Sybaris also did not exterminate the indigenous populations that inhabited the district. Many of them were probably enslaved or at least used as labour in the countryside and in the cities.

The Achaean “pòlis” (town) soon succeeded in creating a real empire, its merchants ascended along the rivers that flow into the Ionic Sea, they reached the central Apennine mountains and from there they descended along the rivers flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea. They created a district totally controlled by Sybaris. Strabo (VI, C 263) described Sybaris as a real “empire” that in the Archaic period (600 B.C. – 480 B.C.), controlled 4 populations and 25 cities.

To understand the precocious territorial growth of this Achaean pòlis (town), it is interesting to consider also what Diodorus reported (XII, 9, 2): he wrote that Sybaris granted its citizenship to foreigners with relative ease.

This vast empire of Sybaris was articulated internally through different gradation, ranging from the direct control of the chòra politikè (territory outside the walls where farmers cultivated the fields and dedicated themselves to agriculture), to formally equal relations with some of the more distant communities. An important inscription found at Olympia, datable to the second half of the 6th century. B.C. preserves elements of fundamental importance that integrate the Strabo’s description. This is a peace treaty signed between Sybaris and their allies (Sýmmachoi) and the Serdàioi, an indigenous community that recent studies tend to place in the “Valle del Noce”, on the border between northern Tyrrhenian Calabria and Lucania. Ultimately the empire of Sybaris, beyond the original chòra, where indigenous people most probably worked as slaves, consisted of a substantial group of subdued communities (probably 4 populations and 25 cities, as Strabo says) and finally in a circle of allies (the Sýmmachoi of the  Olympia treaty), at least formally independent. In the Greek colonial world, this is probably the first example of a complex territorial entity, extended beyond the limited boundaries of traditional pòlis.

Very important were also the extra-urban sanctuaries of Sybaris, real projections of the city in the “chòra”. Through the sacred dimension, they marked the progressive control of this Achaean “pòlis” (town) on the territory and, at the same time, attracted the indigenous populations of the district, also assuming the role of privileged places of contact and exchange in the border areas. Since the time of the foundation, the sacred marked the limits of the “chòra” of Sybaris.        NOTE: The individual chosen by an ancient Greek polis (town) as the leader of any new colonisation.

 Excerpt from: Gioacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia , Editori Laterza, 2011, pp 84-90

 

 
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POMPEII CITY WALLS – Part 1

 

The perimeter of the city walls of Pompeii is 3220 m and has seven recognized gates; of an eighth – Capua Gate – it was assumed the existence based on a possible symmetry in the position of the gates. (1) Like any city in the ancient world, the walls of Pompeii were of particular importance because, in addition to performing a defensive function, they also marked the passage between the urbs (city) and the ager (countryside), between citizens and those who were not yet citizens (the indigenous rural population, for example) or those who were no longer (the deceased). The city walls were impassable because they were untouchable in the religious and legal sense of the term. The jurist Gaius, active between the reign of Hadrian and that of Marcus Aurelius (2nd century AD), used the term “res sanctae” (sacred property) to indicate the walls and their gates. (2) To justify and legitimately base the appropriation of a space which was completely removed from the domain of Nature, a divine origin sanctioned in its own settlement with its walls in order to directly involve the Gods in the fate of the city. (3) In Greek times in many cases – in Magna Graecia we know the cases of Locri and Agrigento – the sacred areas were located along the route of the city walls, both internally and externally, to constitute the best known cases of “ceinture sacrée” (sacred city walls), according to a lucky definition by François de Polignac. In practice, the whole city was physically placed under the protection of the Olympian Gods, through a widespread distribution of sacred areas along the perimeter of the city walls, above all at the gates. (4)

It is surprising how this description of “ceinture sacrée” can be perfectly found even in Pompeii. In fact, with the exception of the “Capitolium”, obviously located in the Forum, all the main sacred sanctuaries (Temple of Apollo, the Triangular Forum, Temple of Aesculapius or Jupiter Meilichios, the Temple of Venus) lie by two of the seven city gates, the so-called “Marina Gate” and “Stabian Gate”.

Furthermore, city gates marked a border that was often demarcated not only by physical defenses (towers, ditches, gates), but also by symbols that evoked a magical protection of urban space (sacred images, apotropaic symbols) (5). Interesting in this regard is what was found, for example, in the niche at the main archway of Porta Marina in Pompeii: a fictile statue of Minerva, guardian goddess of the city gates. (6)

For what concerns the first urban nucleus of Pompeii, until a few decades ago, it was thought that it was much more limited and its walls developed around the “Vicolo del Lupanare”, “Vicolo degli Augustali” and ” Vicolo dei Soprastanti ”, which is the closest territory to the current Forum. This theory was also reinforced by the presence, in the aforementioned area, by urban planning oriented in a different way from the rest of the city. It was then thought that, later, around the fifth century BC, the city had developed towards the East and North. In other words, it was believed that, after an initial urbanistic phase where Pompeii developed to just 9.3 hectares, it later developed to 63.5 hectares. (7)

To crown the aforementioned theory, in 1979 the German scholar Hans Eschebach published an authoritative monograph, which stated that in the 6th century BC, where today the “Stabian Baths” rise, the fortifications ran with a moat and a city gate. (8)

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976, pp. 85
    2.  P. Gros, L’architettura romana dagli inizi dal III secolo a.C. alla fine dell’Alto Impero: i monumenti pubblici, Milano, Longanesi & C. 2001, pag 28
    3.  Giuseppe Gisotti, La Fondazione delle città, Carocci Editore, 2016, pp. 17-18
    4.  Gioacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia, Editori Laterza, 2011, pag.299
    5.  Giuseppe Gisotti, op. cit. pag. 18
    6.  Fabrizio Pesando, Maria Paola Guidobaldi, Pompei, Oplontis, Ercolano, Stabiae, Guide Archeologiche Laterza, Bari, 2018, pag. 31
    7.  Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, op. cit., pp .12-13
    8. Monika Trümper, Curare se stessi, in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, Pompei e i Greci, Electa, 2017, pag. 265

 

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WINE IN POMPEII -Second Part

The name “Vesuvinum” has been found on wine amphorae in both Pompeii and in Carthage. “Pompeianum” and “Surrentinum” (from Sorrento) were both known in Rome. Pompeian wine amphorae have also been found in Ostia (Italy), Ampurias (Spain), Alesia (Gaul), Vindonissa and Augst (Switzerland), Trier (Germany), and even in Stanmore, Middlesex (Britain). At Carthage more than 40 amphorae were found in a dump dating from c. 43 to 25 BC with the stamp of L. Eumachius, probably the father of the famous Pompeian priestess Eumachia. In the same dump there were six other examples of amphorae stamped with known Pompeian names.
Also the Vetti brothers (Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva) seem to have been great wine merchants, as shown by Matteo della Corte. Thus the figure of Priapus (see Note below), son of Dionysus, placed at the entrance of the beautiful residence, becomes very significant. And even the basket at the feet of the god, filled with fruit among which grapes are the most important, becomes a clear allusion to the prosperity of the funds and vineyards of the Vetti, source of their riches. (1)

Also noteworthy is the Termopolium of Vetutius Placidus, an example of social mobility. At the time of discovery, archaeologists found in 683 sesterces (3 kg). This is one of the few cases in which it is almost certain that that sum constituted the actual collection of the day. (2)

NOTE:
Priapo = God of Nature’s fertility, he was a native of the Middle East. He was called the son of Aphrodite and Dionysus or another son of Chione [In Greek mythology, Chione was the daughter of Boreas, the god of the North wind] and Dionysus.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1) Matteo della Corte, Case ed abitanti di Pompei, Fausto Fiorentino Editore – Napoli, 1965, pag.70
2) Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976, pag. 217

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LÒNGOLA OF POGGIOMARINO – part 2

The huts, of varying sizes and often enclosed by a fence, were generally almost rectangular in shape with one of the short apsidal sides, generally open on the long side, with two aisles and a gable roof. Inside each structure there was a hearth, but often a larger oven was also installed externally for production purposes. The settlement of Poggiomarino, in fact, since the most ancient phases of the Iron Age (IX – VIII century BC), was characterized by handicraft activities of metal, bone, glass paste and amber artifacts, taking shape therefore as an important center of production and exchange of prestige goods. Archaeometric analysis on amber allowed us to confirm that this raw material came from other places, beyond the Baltic. For the “Orientalizing period” (VII century BC), a local fusion activity of metals was also ascertained in Poggiomarino, and isotopic analysis (Isotopengéologie Laboratory of the University of Bern) on lead confirmed that this metal was imported both from South-western Sardinia and from southern Spain (Rio-Tinto Huelva and / or Alpujarride region).

Textile activity, of a domestic nature, must have been fundamental for the local community, as numerous loom weights were found for weaving.

The subsistence economy of this community was mainly based on agriculture and livestock, however, in Poggiomarino, hunting and fishing activities are also documented – irrelevant though, from an economic point of view.

Furthermore, we know that the ancient inhabitants of these marshes also collected spontaneous fruits such as hazelnuts, blackberries, carnelians and – as fodder for the breeding of animals – acorns and oak-galls. There was also a cultivation of cereals and legumes (broad beans), as well as the pressing of grapes to produce wine. Numerous grape seeds were found whose morphobiometric study (dr L. Costantini) confirmed their origin from fruits of cultivated vines.

Also the analysis carried out on the faunal remains (animal bones and malacofauna – which is mollusks) have provided very significant information. The bone remains attributed to domestic animals (cattle, sheep and goats and pigs, but also horses and dogs) are predominant compared to those attributed to wild species (deer and wild boar). Livestock breeding therefore played a primary role in the subsistence economy of Poggiomarino, as cattle, sheep and goats and pigs were the main source of meat to which must have been added, albeit modestly, that from wild mammals and birds. Pigs were only bred for meat production while other domestic animals also provided other resources: cattle had great importance in agricultural work and sheep and goats were exploited for wool, and large and small ruminants could supply skins, horns and bones to work, but also milk for dairy production. As for the horses, of rather limited number, it was thought that their meat did not fit into the eating habits of the local people, and they were used as mounts or draft and loading animals. Among the wild animals the deer is the most widely attested above all through the presence of antlers (the branched appendages of the cervids), some of which were worked. Among the birds, there were animals related to the fluvial-marsh environment such as ducks (geese and ducks) and waders. Otters and turtles are also attested in Poggiomarino – portions of carapace (turtle shell) and plastron (ventral bone plate of the turtle shell) were found. The collection of turtles was evidently for food purposes.

The archeomalacological investigations (studies of ancient mollusks through the observation of the shells) have identified the presence of fresh water, continental and marine mollusks. The first two species were probably collected around the site for food purposes while for marine species they apparently came from sandy bottoms of the ancient mouth of the Sarno river. The perforation of a large number of valves and the shaping of anthropogenic origin of some shells attest to their use for ornamental or ritual purposes. The remains of ichthyofauna (the fish life of this region) are scarce, but the discovery “in situ” (on site) of numerous bronze hooks and net weights confirm the activity.

A very interesting datum emerged from the analysis conducted on some samples of pebbles found in very large quantities in Lòngola: they came from Ischia and from Sardinia. The hypothesis has been advanced by G. Di Mais according to which this material would have been used as a ballast for boats that arrived empty at Poggiomarino and would then leave full of cereals from there – during the Iron Age the entire plain of Sarno had wheat and cereals growing on it – or even prestige goods.

The huge amount of wood recovered in the village of Lòngola, above all poles and boards for the reclamation and regimentation of the banks of the canals but also structural elements required xylological analysis (xylology = study of wood): the genus “Quercus” (oak tree) was the most represented , both for the excellent characteristics of resistance and, obviously, for the abundant availability in the areas surrounding the settlement. In Poggiomarino, this species had very wide and well-spaced growth rings, typical of trees grown in a damp plain forest, but there is no lack of oaks with more rings, coming from the nearby mountains. Very significant is also the use of boards made of white fir wood, with good durability, which came from areas quite far from the site; this shows an ability to select the material according to the specific need for use. (1)

NOTE:
Magna Graecia (Megalē Hellas) refers to the coastal areas of Southern Italy which were colonized by various ancient Greek city-states from the 8th to 5th centuries BC

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1) Caterina Cicirelli, Stato delle ricerche a Longola di Poggiomarino: quadro insediamentale e problematiche, in Pietro Giovanni Guzzo e Maria Paola Guidobaldi, Nuove Ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003-2006), Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 1-3 febbraio 2007, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2008, pp. 476-480

 

 

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LÒNGOLA OF POGGIOMARINO – part 1

In the summer of the year 2000, during the construction of the Poggiomarino/Striano (Naples) wastewater treatment plant, in Lòngola di Poggiomarino scholars discovered an exceptional wetland settlement occupied since the Middle Bronze Age (XVI-XIV century BC) until the beginning of the VI century B.C.

The site of Lòngola is located in the upper valley of the Sarno river, near the current course of the same river, a little over ten kilometers east of Pompeii, in an area surrounded by the Iron Age necropolis (IX- VIII century BC) of Striano, San Marzano, San Valentino Torio and Poggiomarino. The plant was eliminated in 2004 and the Superintendency of Pompeii took possession of the entire area to carry out archaeological research. (1)

 

 WHY  IS THE DISCOVERY OF LÒNGOLA OF POGGIOMARINO SO INTERESTING?

It is a partial pile-dwelling settlement near the banks of the Sarno river, which brought us into one of these villages inhabited by the “Sarrastri”, people who founded Pompeii later. Those villages were made up of artificial islets, and their inhabitants created pile dwellings and moved among them trading, entering then already in contact with the Greeks. There we found indigenous ceramics, local ceramics, but already in these high chronological levels – we are in the course of the Iron Age [IX – VIII century B.C. – the period characterized by the use of iron metallurgy, especially for the manufacture of weapons and tools] – imported Greek ceramics. The “Magna Graecia” merchants went up the mouth of the Sarno river  and reached these inhabited areas along the middle and upper valley of the Sarno river. These inhabitants met  Greeks from “Magna Graecia”(See Note): Greeks from  “Pithecusae” (Ischia) (2), “Cuma” (Kyme) in the “Phlegraean Fields”, “Sibari”. In the valley of the Sarno the river people moved by “lontri”, a kind of pirogue, made from great trunks of great trees which allowed goods and people to move easily from one small island to another and from one river point to another. The Lòngola excavations took place in a humid situation which allows the preservation of  wood. In practice the presence of a water-table has favored the formation of an anaerobic environment which has allowed an optimal conservation of the organic matter in the village, in addition to a high number of both ceramic and metallic finds. Therefore Lòngola has given up a large quantity of wood (the wood of the palafittes, the floors of the huts) including two pirogues, always closed in the warehouses, in a casket coffin which is able to stabilize the hygrometric parameters (such as humidity parameters).

 

Numerous bone and horn objects were found, mainly of the deer family (needles, spatulas, awls, dagger handles, pins, pendants).

 

We have seen that since the earliest phase, the inhabitants of those villages covered the islets with thin reed walls belonging to disused huts, and to extend them, wooden boards were stuck vertically in the sand which delineated a new space in the water and then they filled it with heterogeneous material. Plant twigs and mats were then used as water insulators. But this was not enough: we have seen that, due to hydro-geological variations, it was necessary to periodically raise the floor of the houses.

 

NOTE:

Magna Graecia (Megalē Hellas) refers to the coastal areas of Southern Italy which were colonized by various ancient Greek city-states from the 8th to 5th centuries BC

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Caterina Cicirelli, Stato delle ricerche a Longola di Poggiomarino: quadro insediamentale e problematiche, in Pietro Giovanni Guzzo e Maria Paola Guidobaldi, Nuove Ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003-2006),  Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 1-3 febbraio 2007, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2008,  473
  2. Pier Giovanni Guzzo “Pompei, Magna Grecia”, in  Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017 – p. 56

 
  

 

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