Resurrecting Pompeii (2 page)

6.1 Scoring system for the determination of sex from observations on bones 120
7.1 Mean ages associated with the phases of the Suchey–Brooks ageing system from the pubic symphysis 141
7.2 Modified standard scoring scheme for the attribution of relative age-at-death 142
7.3 Age distribution of the Pompeian sample, based on the pelvis 145
7.4 Age distribution based on the Suchey–Brooks technique (note male and female scores have been pooled) 145
7.5 Age determination based on eruption of dentition 152
7.6 Age determination by AttA 152
7.7 Age determination by AttB 152
7.8 Age-at-death determination from skulls examined by
D’Amore
et al
160
7.9 Age-at-death determination from the skull sample studied by Nicolucci 160
7.10 Age-at-death estimates by Henneberg and Henneberg 161
7.11 Age distribution of the Herculaneum skeletal sample studied by Bisel 163
7.12 Age distribution of the Herculaneum skeletal sample studied by Capasso 164
7.13 Age distribution as calculated by Petrone
et al
165
8.1 Stature estimates based on Pompeian femora 182
8.2 Stature estimates for the Herculaneum skeletal sample and a modern Neapolitan sample 183
9.1 Presence of palatine torus in various populations 230
9.2 Frequency of palatine torus from Scandinavian archaeological samples 230
9.3 Frequencies of mandibular double-rooted canines in
various regions 232
9.4 Frequency of metopic suture in various populations 234
9.5 Frequency of inca bones in various populations 235

9.6 Presence of ossicle at lambda in various populations 238
9.7 Side incidence of lambdoid ossicles in various populations 239
9.8 Cranial incidence of lambdoid ossicles in various populations 240
9.9 Side incidence of coronal ossicles in various populations 241
9.10 Cranial incidence of coronal ossicles in various populations 241
9.11 Frequency of ossicle at bregma in various populations 242
9.12 Presence of sagittal ossicles in various populations 242
9.13 Side incidence of ossicle at asterion in various populations 243
9.14 Cranial incidence of ossicle at asterion in various populations 243
It is not possible to adequately acknowledge the numerous people who have assisted and encouraged me during the course of the research and the writing of this book, but the following must be mentioned.
I would like to thank the current Superintendent of Pompeii, Professor Pier Giovanni Guzzo, for his continued permission to obtain access to skeletal material and for his generous support of this work and for granting me permission to reproduce photographs I have taken of skeletal material on site. Thanks are also due to the previous Superintendent, Professor Baldassare Conticello, for initially granting me permission to work on the human skeletons from Pompeii. I am grateful to all the staff at the
Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei
, in particular, Dr Antonio D’Ambrosio, Grete Stefani, Dr Antonio Varone, Vittorio Boccia, Vincenzo Matrone and Mattia Buondonno. The custodians who facilitated my research deserve a special mention, most notably the late Luigi Matrone and Ciro Sicignano, as well as Franco Striano.
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Head of the British School at Rome and leader of the Herculaneum Conservation Project, has provided endless support and assistance, for which I am extremely grateful. I would also like to thank the Herculaneum Conservation Project Manager, Jane Thompson, and research and outreach coordinator, Sarah Court, for their patience in answering questions about the ethics and management of the human skeletal remains at Herculaneum.
I am beholden to Emeritus Professor Richard Green, from the Department of Classical Archaeology at the University of Sydney, for suggesting that I write this book and for his unfailing support and encouragement during the writing process.
I am very much indebted to the Discipline of Architectural Science in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning for appointing me as an Honorary Research Associate. The level of collegiality has been wonderful and I am particularly grateful to Dr Simon Hayman for his assistance with the statistical analysis of the data, as well as his comments and criticism of the text, and to Dr Jennifer Gamble, for her acts of gratuitous kindness, especially with regard to the seemingly endless task of referencing the work. I

xv also want to express my gratitude to Megan Haig and Suzanne Roberts for their comments and criticism of the text. I deeply regret that Emeritus Professor Henry J. Cowan did not live to see the manuscript completed. He was a wonderful mentor to me. I would also like to thank the excellent IT team, Julian Tam, Joe Nappa and Leslie George, for their continuous assistance throughout the project. Thanks are also due to Bruce Forwood, Professor Warren Julian, Dr David Leifer, Professor Richard Hyde, Kim Beecroft, Mark Neil, Sharon Dubos, Jennifer Ryan, Dr Densil Cabrera, Sharon Perritt, Dr onacloV, Anne Christian, Rick Moss, Phil Granger, Ken Stewart, John Elliot and Bruce Hyde for their continued support and assistance.

This work could not have been completed without the support of the staff of the former Architecture Library (now SciTech library), who could not have been more helpful. They always treated my more obscure requests for interlibrary loans as a challenge rather than a nuisance. Particular mention must be made to Lise Roberts, Michael Arndell, Lindy Collien, Margaret Harvey, Helen Campbell, Dr John Wu, Michelle Harrison, Rebecca Goldsworthy, Elizabeth Quilty, Michael David Hoggard, Lily Li and Sue Gong.

Friends and colleagues across the University of Sydney also made a significant contribution to this work, especially Dr Sarah Colley from Archaeology, Dr Kathryn Welch from Ancient History and Monika Dzidowska from Psychology. Dr Murray Smith, then of Econometrics, generously provided assistance with the statistical analysis of the data and Associate Professor Cedric Shorey guided my training in anatomy.

Special mention must be made of the team of people who were involved in the x-ray analysis of the cast of the ‘Lady of Oplontis’ in 1994. My thanks especially go to the late Dr Mario Benanzio, orthopaedic surgeon, who helped me apply for permission to do this work, organized logistic support and assisted with the interpretation of the x-rays, Dr Michael Houang, radiologist, who provided access to the x-ray and CT-scanning facilities, x-ray film, radiographic support and interpretation of the x-rays, and Dr Chris Griffiths, of the then NSW Forensic Institute for organizing the dental x-rays and their interpretation. I appreciate their provision of permission to reproduce some of these x-rays in this book. Thanks are also due to Ian White, from the then NSW Forensic Institute, Dr Greg Doran, then from Anatomy and Histology, University of Sydney, and the team of radiographers. The staff at the Australian Museum, where the body was housed as part of the travelling exhibition, Rediscovering Pompeii, were wonderful in providing logistical support, especially Ross Clendenning, Colin MacGregor, Liz Wilson and Liz Pearson.

Numerous scholars generously provided me with information and advice, including forensic dentists, Dr Alain Middleton and Dr Sue Cole, as well as forensic pathologist, Dr Chris Lawrence, Professor Marshall Becker from West Chester University, USA, Dr Corinne Duhig, University of Cambridge, Dr Jonathon Musgrave, then from Anatomy, University of Bristol, Professor Valerie Higgins of the American University of Rome, Dr Vincenzia Iorio, then of Pompeii, Dr Penelope Allison, University of Leicester and Amanda Claridge and Professor Grahame Barker, former Deputy Director and former Director of the British School at Rome. I am eternally grateful to Professor Emeritus Peter Garnsey, Department of Classics, for his continued encouragement and support.

For their endless patience and continuous assistance, I would like to thank Richard Stoneman, Amy Laurens and particularly Lalle Pursglove, who saw the book to completion.

Finally, I would like to express gratitude to my family and friends for their moral support and comments and criticism of the text. In particular, I would like to thank Ruth, Asher and Dr Carol Lazer, Ian Chapman, Vicki Parish, Sean Volke and Leigh Dayton.

As humans, we suffer from the double whammy of being both sentient and mortal. We may attempt to defy our chronological age with Botox and plastic surgery, but whatever we do, we will eventually die. Death is a taboo subject in modern Western society and has largely been removed from view. Denial does not change the fact that our ultimate demise is an unavoidable rite of passage. The most common question I overheard from passing tourists during my years of fieldwork in Pompeii was, ‘So where are the dead bodies?’ Perhaps this can be interpreted as a recognition of a need to view one’s fate rather than just a gratuitous act of voyeurism.

The human remains from Pompeii have always been a major attraction for visitors to the site. They have been one of the key factors that separated Pompeii from Herculaneum, which did not have a culture of bodies due to the minimal number of skeletons found there before the 1980s. There are several reasons for the fascination with the remains of individuals who perished in a mass disaster almost two millennia ago. One of the most important is that the event that killed the victims was also responsible for preserving their living context, from the most humble domestic items to substantial, largely intact structures. Another is that the negative forms of a number of bodies were preserved, which when cast, can provide a detailed image of individuals at the time of their death. Visitors can gaze at death without seeing the actual body. These human remains are also more accessible than those from other contexts, like Egyptian tombs or plague pits. This is because Pompeii is an aboveground site where we can see all the minutiae that made up a lifestyle to which a modern Western person could easily relate. Ultimately, the human remains from Pompeii are compelling because of their context. They are not too confronting because they are removed by time and, in the case of casts, they present a tangible reflection of identifiable individuals without the disturbing reality of soft tissue.

This book explores the fascination with human remains from Pompeii from the first discovery of skeletons in the eighteenth century to the realization that the forms of the bodies were also preserved.

The first part of the book considers why there was so much interest in this material and yet only minimal research was undertaken until the latter part of the twentieth century. The sample of available skeletons was severely compromised, partly because a number of the skeletons were used to create vignettes of the tragic last moments of victims. Initially, human remains were not considered to have much other value than as props, both physically and for the creative reconstruction of the lives of the victims. There was no appreciation of their intrinsic research value. As a result, many of the skeletons were disarticulated over time and stored in ancient buildings.

This book is more about storytelling and investigative procedure than an attempt to produce the definitive work on the human remains from Pompeii. The most vital part of the process of studying human skeletal material is the collection of basic data from measurements and observations. These data and their use to establish the sex ratio, range of ages-at-death, general health and population affinities of the sample, provide baseline information that underpins all future studies of the material at the macroscopic, microscopic and molecular level. The limitations of the techniques and the problems associated with dealing with biological material are also discussed. Some of the recent literature on the Vesuvian sites gives the impression that the evidence provides us with more certain information about the past than is actually the case. Knowledge of the limitations of the evidence and the techniques that are used for its interpretation is an essential tool for an assessment of claims about the victims of the eruption. The level of information presented enables the non-specialist to appreciate the degree of uncertainty associated with skeletal identification and should help determine when the evidence has been pushed beyond its potential and speculation begins.

The approach taken in this book is multidisciplinary. There is no assumed specialist knowledge and, while this is not a textbook, the information required to understand and critically assess this and other works, especially in osteoarchaeology, is explained in detail in the text. A glossary and illustrations have been included to make the book easy for the non-specialist to use without having to resort to other sources.

On 7 April 1768 the Austrian Emperor Joseph II visited Pompeii. To mark the occasion, a house was named in his honour and he was invited to witness the excavation of its contents. As he watched the workmen remove the pumice stones that covered the kitchen on the lower level of the house, a human skeleton was revealed. Perhaps the bones were draped just a little too artistically over several amphorae. Whatever the reason, it was instantly apparent that a deception had been perpetrated and that it was not of the highest order. Joseph II was not impressed.
¹

This occurrence was not unique, though other dignitaries were more gullible than the Austrian Emperor and failed to recognize that the scenes of the final moments in the lives of victims that emerged from the pumice and ash had been faked.

Such tableaux were the result of the tendency for those in charge of the site in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to re-excavate spectacular finds and produce vignettes for the benefit of celebrity guests; for example, the
Casa del Chirurgo
(House of the Surgeon) (VI, i, 10) was ‘discovered’ three times in the presence of royalty. The designated area was liberally salted with valuables, such as coins and statues, and then re-covered with ash and pumice stones or lapilli. Skeletons were often employed as they provided wonderful props for this kind of entertainment.
²

Elements of this approach to the site have continued to the present, albeit in a less ostentatious form. In this context, the bones of the Pompeian victims have been treated as artefacts rather than as a class of archaeological evidence. That this happened in the eighteenth and even in the nineteenth centuries is perhaps not so surprising. The continuation of this tradition and the fact the skeletal material found at the site was not subjected to the types of analysis routinely used for human remains from other sites until the latter part of the twentieth century requires some explanation. The nature of the destruction of Pompeii, the history and philosophy of the excavations and the close relationship between popular culture and skeletal finds had considerable bearing on the study and presentation of human remains from this site.