In
79 AD, Mount Vesuvius errupted, famously burying Pompeii
under layers of ash. However another, somewhat smaller
city was also affected; it was called Herculaneum, and
according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus was so named
because of the legend that it was founded by Hercules.
Quite
aside from this impressive foundation, Herculaneum should
not be viewed as simply a less impressive version of
Pompeii, and indeed there are features of the smaller
city which are of far more academic interest. For instance,
the method in which Herculaneum was buried differs from
what happened at Pompeii; a torrent of water and volcanic
sediment swept through the city, filling up every available
crevice with a mud which later solidified in place,
and this process preserved the wood used in the construction
of the various buildings. It is also responsible for
perhaps the most remarkable find at Herculaneum - the
scrolls in the Villa of the Papyri, which were also
preserved by the mud.
The
villa was excavated in 1750-54, during the first official
phase of excavations of Herculaneum. It was itself beyond
the main structure of the town, situated on the side
of Vesuvius where its inhabitants must have had a spectacular
view of the surrounding countryside. It has been suggested
that, given its position relative to the centre, it
must not have been an actual part of the city, but this
is debatable. It was also an unusually large villa,
suggesting that the owners must have been wealthy; indeed
there has been much discussion over who the owner would
have been, with suggestions including Julius Caesar
(or at least his father-in-law).
| Inside
the villa, two rooms were found to contain nearly
seven hundred scrolls, of which some were duplicates,
but it is estimated that the library comprised around
two hundred different works. These scrolls are very
interesting to us not leas t because they were copi
es made much closer to the dates when their respective
authors lived than most other manuscripts we possess.
They are mostly in Greek, and seem to contain primarily
Epicurean philosophical texts. |
|
Despite
having survived for hundreds of years beneath the lava,
these papyri were found to be very fragile when they
were excavated. In order to establish their contents,
they had to be opened intact, and this was not a simple
process. Paderni, the excavator who found the papyri
in the first place, experimented with soaking the scrolls
in wine, with little success; his colleague Sansevero
tried chemical methods such as immersion in mercury
with no more luck. In 1754, Piaggio found a method which
worked for scrolls which were preserved in their original
cylindrical shape, which involved dipping them in an
isinglass solution, attaching an additional 'skin' to
the outside, and then allowing them to dry before unrolling.
The first scroll to be opened in this way took four
years to unravel, and although the process sped up considerably
after that (the second took only one year), it was still
slow going.
 |
In
1755 Carlo III of Spain set up an official body
to look after the project, called the 'Officina
dei Papiri', which has had a rocky history of being
closed and re-opened ever since. However it did
manage to attract many experimental papyrologists
to come and have a go at the problem of opening
the scrolls. |
|
Lapira
attempted fumigation, which worked wonders in
terms of ease of unrolling - however the contents
were badly damaged by the process, rendering the
exercise somewhat pointless. A physicist called
Young also tried, coming up with many unsuccessful
methods, and one which worked - using a blow-pipe
to separate the layers. After tackling the problems
surrounding what kind of air was best for this,
in terms of humidity and temperature, he did have
some success, but found the process to be so tedious
that it was abandoned.&n bsp; Meanwhile, progress
had been made with Piaggio's method, which was
used in the years 1802-06 to open around 200 rolls
- a dramatic improvement.
Experiments
into the best ways to open, read, copy and preserve
the Herculaneum scrolls are still ongoing, with
modern technology providing new ideas and new
challenges. There is also a substantial campaign
to get the site of the Villa of the Papyri at
Herculaneum re-excavated (it was filled in following
the first excavation), both in order that more
may be learned, and that interested tourists may
visit.
|
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Bibliography
Books
used in the writing of the above:
'Herculaneum:
Past, Present & Future', Waldstein & Shoorbridge
(London, 1908)
'Herculaneum', Maiuri (Rome, 1948)
'Herculaneum: A Guide to the Printed Sources', McIlwaine
(Naples, 1988)
Other
books & articles of interest (which I couldn't get
hold of):
'La
Villa dei Papyri', ed. Mac chiaroli (1983) <----
in Italian
'Imaging the Carbonized Papyri from Herculaneum', Obbink
(in 'Literary & Linguistic Computing', vol. 12.3,
Oxford)
'The Latin Papyri in Herculaneum', Kleve (in 'Proceedings
of the International Congress on Papyrologists', 1994)
'The Herculaneum Scrolls', Booras & Chabries (in
'IS and TS PICS Conference Proceedings, 2001)
Bookmarks
Official
website of the Herculaneum's Ruins
http://www.pompeiisites.org/database/pompei/pompei2.nsf
Project
of restoration of the Villa of the Papyres by the local
government Regione Campania
http://www.regione.campania.it/governo%20regionale/comunicati_stampa/focus/papiri.htm
The
name Villa of the Papyres is also Villa of the Pisones.
This a report in italian
http://www.campnet.it/pianetamare/pisoni.htm
Articles
about the Villa by The Telegraph and The Art Newspaper
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/05/18/wves18.xml
-
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9416
