Pompeii (Duckworth Archaeological Histories) (Duckworth Archaeological Histories)

Pompeii is Italy's third most popular tourist attraction, with millions of visitors each year. Images of the town are familiar all around the world. But even today our picture of the site is being changed by new archaeological discoveries. The concerns and techniques of today's archaeologists are far removed from those of the earliest excavators. Before turning to the cultural and political background behind the site's rediscovery in 1748, Alison Cooley examines whether it really did remain undisturbed up to that point. In the second half of the nineteenth century the fall of the Bourbon monarchy dramatically heralded a new era of archaeological exploration under the direction of Giuseppe Fiorelli. And in the twentieth century excavation transformed our image of the urban environment of Pompeii, raising new questions as it dug ever deeper. This book explores the impact of scientific advances, archaeological innovations, and contemporary politics upon interpretations of Pompeii over the last 250 years, including the ways in which advances in volcanology have transformed our picture of its last moments. "After examining conditions in the town during its last years of existence, as its people came to terms with repeated earth tremors, Alison Cooley challenges the popular image of Pompeii as frozen in time by the eruption, by examining the extent to which the site really was undisturbed for over 1,500 years. She then turns to the history of the town as an archaeological site, analysing the impact of contemporary politics and cultural preoccupations upon the aims of its excavators form the site's official rediscovery in 1748 until the present day."--Back cover We have heard, my dear Lucilius, that Pompeii, a busy town in Campania, situated where the shore of Sorrento and Stabiae from the one side and from the other the shore of Herculaneum come together and encircle with a beautiful bay the sea where it has been brought in from open waters, has subsided under an earthquake. Prologue to the nightmare The nightmare revealed A broke sleep The reawakening The politics of archaeology Probing beneath the surface Probing ever deeper.