Up Pompeii
May. 1st, 2023 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Pompeii - An Archaeological Guide, by Paul Wilkinson
We had this before our holiday last year, but I didn't feel it made sense to dive into it before we had visited. I'm still broadly of that opinion, although reading it has been useful in identifying the locations of a few of my photos. Like all major visitor attractions, the site is a mixture of strongly prescribed and free-to-roam - it was easy to find peace and quiet within a minute or two of the main streets and areas. Some of the houses described in the guide were closed or somehow unavailable, but I think we did visit most of them. Wilkinson gives over not quite half the book to a survey of the city's history prior to AD79, a typical day in Roman Pompeii, the eruption itself, and an overview of the rediscovery. The remainder suggests a route, which we followed at least in part, and picks out several buildings of interest, describing structures, decoration, and occasionally referencing found artefacts, most of which now reside in museums in Naples. It's helpful in explaining some of the naming of buildings, which sometimes have nothing to do with their Roman owners. There is an occasional slip-up over which Pliny wrote Natural History, and I am left a little confused about "re-discovery" when apparently some buildings remained above the level of the volcanic flows and were plundered shortly afterwards. But on the whole this is useful reading.
We had this before our holiday last year, but I didn't feel it made sense to dive into it before we had visited. I'm still broadly of that opinion, although reading it has been useful in identifying the locations of a few of my photos. Like all major visitor attractions, the site is a mixture of strongly prescribed and free-to-roam - it was easy to find peace and quiet within a minute or two of the main streets and areas. Some of the houses described in the guide were closed or somehow unavailable, but I think we did visit most of them. Wilkinson gives over not quite half the book to a survey of the city's history prior to AD79, a typical day in Roman Pompeii, the eruption itself, and an overview of the rediscovery. The remainder suggests a route, which we followed at least in part, and picks out several buildings of interest, describing structures, decoration, and occasionally referencing found artefacts, most of which now reside in museums in Naples. It's helpful in explaining some of the naming of buildings, which sometimes have nothing to do with their Roman owners. There is an occasional slip-up over which Pliny wrote Natural History, and I am left a little confused about "re-discovery" when apparently some buildings remained above the level of the volcanic flows and were plundered shortly afterwards. But on the whole this is useful reading.