This chapter contains translated excerpts from contemporary excavation day-books. Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia (PAH: History of Pompeian Antiquities) is a three-volume work (1860—1864) which published transcriptions of the manuscript notes kept by the excavators from 1748 onwards (J1—58). It was compiled by Giuseppe Fiorelli while he was a political prisoner in 1849. He is better known for his introduction of a more scientific approach to digging at Pompeii after he had become inspector of the excavations in 1860. His system of numbering every building with three numbers — region, insula and doorway — remains the foundation of how buildings at Pompeii are still identified today. This supplemented the previous custom of giving names to houses, some of which would accumulate more than a dozen names over the years, and which could result in confusion (see note on J55—58). One of the most memorable features of visits to the site today is seeing plaster casts of Vesuvius’ victims, a technique which Fiorelli adopted extensively.
Fiorelli’s publication of the day-books, however, was equally revolutionary. At the time, all publications about sites in the Kingdom of Naples required the official approval of the Royal Herculaneum Academy. When Fiorelli published the first volume in a projected series of eight (entitled Journal of the Excavations of Pompeii: Original Documents Published with Notes and Appendixes) in 1850, the authorities seized and burned his manuscripts, and he was unable to proceed with publication at that time. After this incident, and his brief imprisonment, he was excluded from any job in Naples Museum or at Pompeii, and was employed by Count Leopold of Syracuse as a private secretary (1853—1860), carrying out and publishing excavations at Cumae.
After the eventual fall of the Bourbon dynasty in 1860, Fiorelli was reinstated, first as inspector of excavations at Pompeii in 1860, and then, from 1863, as both superintendent of Pompeii and as director of Naples Museum. He was also then able to publish PAH in three volumes from 1860 to 1864. In 1875, Fiorelli was appointed director-general of antiquities. By virtue of this post, he was able to implement on an Italy-wide stage some of the innovations that he had introduced to Naples and Pompeii. Well aware of the
Importance of regular reporting of the latest archaeological discoveries in Italy, he established in 1876 the journal Notizie degli scavi di antichitd (NSc: Notes on Excavations of Antiquity), which is still published today, to provide monthly reports of current excavations. Extracts from this journal are translated here, covering the excavation of the House of the Vettii (J59—70).
World History
