Resurrecting Pompeii (43 page)
Read Resurrecting Pompeii Online
Authors: Estelle Lazer
Figure 10.1
Cast of a very young victim from the
Casa del Bracciale d
’
Oro
(VI, xvii, 42), which was found with three other victims between 3 and 6 June 1974. It displays a high degree of preservation of the facial features and clothing details
Any one can see them now, in the museum at Naples; nothing could be more striking than the spectacle. They are not statues, but corpses, moulded by Vesuvius; the skeletons are still there, in those casings of plaster which reproduce what time would have destroyed, and what the damp ashes have preserved – the clothing and the flesh, I might almost say the life. The bones peep through here and there, in certain places which the plaster did not reach. Nowhere else is there anything like this to be seen. The Egyptian mummies are naked, blackened, hideous; they no longer have anything in common with us; they are laid out for their eternal sleep in the consecrated attitude. But the exhumed Pompeians are human beings whom one sees in the agonies of death.
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and the interpretation of casts
Bulwer-Lytton ’sinfluence on the interpretation of Pompeian human remains was already well established when the first human forms were cast in 1863. Because of the survival of considerable personal detail, the casts could be employed as even more eloquent props than skeletons to illustrate the terrible fate of the victims of the eruption. Circumstantial evidence, in the form of associated artefacts, was combined with the attitude and perceived expression on the faces of the casts to establish their final moments. It is notable that one of the contemporary accounts of the first body forms that were revealed by Fiorelli included the statement that they ‘would have
Two of the first bodies successfully cast in 1863 (from Adams, 1868, 266)
10
The groundbreaking application of the casting technique to humans captured the imagination of visitors to the site and numerous accounts were published in a variety of languages in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
11
These pieces owe much to Bulwer-Lytton, with their sense of melodrama and interpretations based solely on superficial visual inspection of the casts and their accoutrements.
In one version, dating from 1864,
12
two of the first group of bodies that were cast were described as possibly being a mother and daughter. The elder was considered to be of humble birth on the basis of the size of her ears and, perhaps less remarkably, because she was wearing an iron ring. Her stretched out raised left leg was proffered as evidence of her suffering. The younger female was assigned an age of less than 15. The impression of the drapery of her clothing was described in detail, as was a reconstruction of how she met her end. The writer, Marc Monnier, claimed that she raised her robe over her head in terror and subsequently fell while running. Unable to rise again, she had supported her ‘young and feeble head’ on one arm. He considered that she did not endure any lengthy period of pain. In front of these individuals was a victim described as female and assumed to be noble as she was found near a substantial sum of money, jewels, a key and two silver vases. Her attitude is described in some detail and from this the author was able to conclude that she had struggled for a considerable period of time in agony as he considered that pose reflected suffering rather than death. He was of the opinion that her anguish had been greater than that of the woman that fell behind her as the poor ‘lose less in dying’. The fourth victim is identified as a giant of a man who had ‘flung himself on his back to die bravely’.
The interpretation in another nineteenth-century account, published in the
Quarterly Review
,
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is so similar to that described above, it seems likely that both were derived from a common source. There is general agreement about the sex and age attributions, as well as the social status of these victims. This author was also concerned with the level of suffering of the victims. From the poses it was deduced that the supposedly wealthy woman battled for her life and that the man had chosen to lie down to ‘meet death like a brave man’. The young girl also fought hard before dying, while the cast that was presumed to be that of her mother had died without a struggle. The cast flesh of females was of particular interest to the writer. The skin of the girl, which was revealed where her garments had torn, was described as ‘smooth young skin’ that appeared like ‘polished marble’. Similarly, the exposed leg of the wealthy woman was said to be rather shapely and could well have been cast from ‘an exquisite work of Greek art’.
The tendency to accord special attention to females that were considered attractive can be seen in a number of works, like that of Gusman. He described a cast interpreted as that of a young girl, as ‘a graceful creature with a delicate neck, a slender figure and well-shaped legs’ and another as having ‘rounded thighs and delicately modelled knees and ankles’.
14
Mostly this was used as a device to make the death of an individual more poignant. The casts were perceived as a valuable resource for illustrating the human loss in this disaster. This attitude is perhaps best summarized in the
Quarterly Review
article:
And more ghastly and painful, yet deeply interesting and touching objects, it is difficult to conceive. We have death itself moulded and cast – the very last struggle and final agony brought before us. They tell their story with a horrible dramatic truth that no sculptor could ever reach.
15
The tradition of using the casts for Bulwer-Lytton style storytelling has continued right into the twentyfirst century. Emphasis has been placed on a few specific casts or groups of casts and stories based on their interpretation dominate both the academic and popular literature. A few key examples will suffice.
Cast of a man with sandals, generally assumed to be a beggar (Gusman, 1900, 16)
The impression of sandals can be seen on the feet. They appear to be of high quality and it has been assumed that they would have been much too good for a beggar. They have been explained away as a donation from a public charity.
16
Another cast is that of a squatting figure that was found near the remains of a donkey. This person is generally assumed to have been male and to have worked as a muleteer (Figure 10.4).
17
Several of the casts have been interpreted as pregnant women, including a cast found in the Via Stabiana (Figures 10.7 and 10.8) and one of the group of casts made in about 1989 in Region I, Insula 22. Though these assumed pregnancies have been solely based on the shape of the belly, some writers have even reported the age of the foetus.
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A number of groups of casts, such as the nine casts made in the grounds of the
Casa del Criptoportico
(I, vi, 2) in 1914 and the 13 that were produced from bodies found in the
Orto dei Fuggiaschi
(I, xxi, 2) in 1961, have provided the basis for elaborate stories very much in the style of those associated with the first casts that were made in 1863. Etienne, for example, described casts made in 1961 as having comprised people from three families who had taken shelter under a roof. A woman had tried to filter the foul air through a cloth pressed to her mouth. Despite the lack of evidence, he concluded that ‘her husband must have watched her die, still holding the hand of their child before finally succumbing himself’.
19
Maiuri presented a similar reconstruction of the relationships of the victims and their terrible death from the gardens of the
Casa del Criptoportico
(I, vi, 2). He described them as a ‘pitiful’ group, including what he interpreted as a mother and daughter locked in a
tragic embrace’.
20
These casts still elicit strong emotions and are commonly described in these terms in the more recent literature.
21
The melodramatic narrative approach has been so pervasive it has even entered the scientific literature on preserved bodies.
22
Cast of a fugitive found near the latrine of the large palaestra (II, 7), commonly interpreted as a muleteer
It is a remarkable testimony of the power of the legacy of
The Last Days of Pompeii
that superficial inspection of the casts, flimsy circumstantial evidence and dollops of imagination have driven the interpretation of forms of the victims. Even though the bones survived, there was no attempt to use the skeletal record to test any of the assumptions about the identification of individuals that were made from visual inspection until the end of the twentieth century (see below). It should also be noted that there is differential preservation across the site. While incredible detail is preserved on some of the casts, on many only a crude form is discernible, like a partially realized image. The ambiguity of details has not been an impediment to personal identification for many writers, as in the case of the rough form of the so-called muleteer, which has been confidently identified as a male.
Both the academic and popular literature present the casts as individuals frozen in time. The issue of the reliability of the casts as evidence of people as they were at the exact moment of their death requires some consideration.
A number of the casts display evidence of the so-called ‘pugilistic pose’ that is associated with exposure to extremely high temperatures at or around the time of death (see Chapter 4). The muscle contractions that cause flexion of the limbs are nearly always post mortem as the heat required to affect muscles in this way is not compatible with life.
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The tongue may protrude in such cases, leaving the victim with, at least, a partially open mouth. This calls into question some of the interpretations of expressions on the faces and the reconstructions of how people died.
Many of the casts are imperfect and the details are often ambiguous. Plaster casts are subject to slight shrinkage during the drying process, which has led to the suggestion that the perception of Pompeians as small in stature is linked to this phenomenon.
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It is, however, unlikely that the shrinkage of plaster would have been sufficient to appreciably diminish the actual size of victims.
A more serious problem is presented by the creative restoration of holes in the casts, which resulted from bubbles formed in the plaster as it dried. Similarly, the armature used for recasting bodies has seams, which means that anything that is recast would have to be treated prior to display. It has been acknowledged that, in the past, such imperfections in the casts were often retouched by restorers, which made them more like sculptures and decreased their scientific value.
25
The development of casting techniques and their application has been poorly documented, which makes it difficult to subject casts to a systematic study. While some of the casts have been made by people with little or no technical training,
26
it appears that the techniques for casting were perfected by restorers who traditionally had a background in sculpture and other arts. It is telling that there do appear to be stylistic differences between casts produced in different periods. These are substantial enough to enable a number of the casts to be datable purely on the basis of visual inspection.
The casts made during the time of Fiorelli ’s directorship, especially when the casting techniques became well-established in the 1870s, tend to have relatively well-defined and naturalistic features. Good examples from this period are the seventh cast that was made on 25 September 1873
27
and the ninth individual, which was cast on 23 April 1875
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(Figures 10.5, 10.7 and 10.8).
By comparison, the casts made under the regime of Maiuri tend to have far more schematic features; the limbs tend to appear more rubbery and the facial features are minimally defined, with depressions to mark the eyes and slashes to demarcate mouths. Examples can be seen amongst the 13 victims
Figure 10.5
The seventh cast was made on 25 September 1873, during the excavation of a garden (1, v, 3) (after a photograph by Robert Rive (n. 163), reproduced in García y García, 2006, 191, Figure 44)
that were cast in the Garden of the Fugitives during April and May, 1961 (I, xxi, 2) and the three individuals who perished on a staircase in the House of Fabius Rufus, that were cast in November 1961 (Figure 10.6).
29
As mentioned above, the amount of detail that survived was highly dependent on the conditions associated with the material that encased each victim and there was considerable variation between the casts of individuals. It is tempting to conclude that far more than minor imperfections associated with the casting technique were creatively restored. One could speculate that the simplified features of the twentieth-century casts resulted from the influence of contemporary art, whilst the nineteenth-century restorations tended to be more naturalistic, which in turn was a reflection of the art of that period. It should be noted that the observed stylistic differences over time are more likely to be a function of the traditions of the restorers of an era than the artistic sensibilities of a particular director of the excavations.
With this in mind, it is interesting to note that a number of the casts in the nineteenth century were actually equated with works of art; for example, Fiorelli’s seventh cast (Figure 10.5), often interpreted as a sleeping male, was described as bearing greater resemblance to a statue than a cadaver.
30
Similarly, the ninth cast of a victim (Figures 10.7 and 10.8), whose clothing had bunched up and revealed apparently female buttocks and legs, was lovingly compared to a well known statue from the Farnese collection in the Naples National Archaeological Museum, the Venus Kallipygos.
31
This Roman copy of a Hellenistic statue was known as the Venus Kallipygos, or Venus with the beautiful buttocks, because she too was only partially draped, which drew attention to her bared nether regions.
