Part of Light Night Leeds City Museum Friday 4th October 2013

Bringing the ancient world to life through the Victorian carnival FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY.

Roll up! Roll up! And see the Ancient Worlds Gallery in a whole new light! More information http://carnivalofancientwonders.wordpress.com/ Roll up! Roll up! For one night only…

Experience the “Last Day of ” through a series of artefacts from recent excavations presented in tableaux illuminating the sights and activities of everyday Roman life, as presented by Mr Walter Washburn, archaeologist with the German excavating team (1892-1893).

4th October 1893 The Journal and Notes of

Mr Walter Washburn, kept during his visit to Italy, 1892-1893,

during which time he visited Pompeii and participated in an excavation there. Vesuvius from

Portici, c. 1774–1776, original in oil on canvas (40” x 51”) by the British artist Joseph Wright (1734–1797).

Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, Frances Crandall Dyke Bequest.

Monday 3rd October 1892 Dearest Polly, I can still hardly believe how lucky I am. It is only a week since my kind hosts in Naples introduced me to August Mau – yes, the very man who just ten years ago categorised the styles of Pompeian painting – and already he has invited me to visit his newest excavation! I am so glad that mother insisted we learn German as well as French, otherwise I could never have gained his approval by discussing details he published in the German Archaeological Institute’s Roman Mittheilungen. But I don’t need to tell you that! I do need to tell you that he has the most impressive white moustache, very distinguished – I’m half considering growing one myself... The Domus L. Albusius Celsus is the 8th house in the 2nd insula of Region 5 under Guiseppe Fiorella’s numbering system (V.2.i) - I enclose a map torn from my Baedeker Guide, with apologies and thanks to Messrs Baedeker, but shall make a more detailed version for you soon. Excavations began last season and there are only a few weeks before Mau goes to winter in , although he says that, if I suit – oh,, I so hope I will – and improve my Italian, I may rejoin them in the Spring! I will take notes and sketch diligently over the next weeks and send you copies of as much as time permits, particularly the decorative schemes, as I remember how much you enjoyed them during our trip with Uncle Richard to the Pompeii Court at Crystal Palace. I am sure you will appreciate seeing these before everyone else! Your loving brother, Walter

It is very strange that parts of this city are open to visitors, while others resemble a building site. These visitors dresses would never survive the gruelling work ahead of me, as it appears I will actually be expected to shift baskets of lapilli from our site!

Postcard of the Forum (the main public area). Up to the present time about three-fifths of Pompeii have been excavated. In 1872 Fiorelli estimated that at the current rate of excavation the whole city would be laid bare in 74 years. Since then work has progressed more slowly, partly because greater care is being taken for the preservation of the remains. At the present we believe that the twentieth century will hardly witness completion of the excavations.

Excavations made under the Direction of Inspector Giuseppe Fiorelli, in 1860, using his new method . Articles of furniture and objects of art that can easily be moved (like the statuettes often found in gardens) are usually taken to the Museum in Naples; a few things have been placed in the little Museum at Pompeii. Now and then small sculptures have been left in a house exactly as they were found; but the necessity of keeping such houses locked and of guarding them with especial care prevents wide adoption of this method of preservation.

This is not a street, it is a house, still with its stone furniture in the atrium - Regio VIII Insula 4, 4, 49. Paintings have been preserved by different methods at different times. Generally, however, the best pictures have been cut from the walls and transferred to the Museum, while the decorative framework has been left undisturbed. It is regrettable that in this way the effect of the decorative system as a whole has been destroyed, for the picture forms the centre of a carefully elaborated scheme of decoration which needs to be viewed as an artistic whole in order to be fully appreciated; and the removal of a painting cannot be accomplished without damaging the parts of the wall immediately in contact with it. A far better method would be to leave intact all walls containing paintings or decorative work of interest, providing such means of protection against the weather as may be necessary – even re-roofing or reconstructing the building. A good beginning in this respect has been made in the case of the house of the Vettii (VI.15.1), the beautiful and well preserved paintings of which have been left on the walls and are preserved with the greatest of care. Although this house is now locked and under guard, which can prove troublesome for the casual visitor – I will suggest this way forward to Herr Mau should there be any paintings of quality in the Domus L. Albusius Celsus. The treatment of a mosaic floor is an altogether different problem. While the floor as a whole, with its ornamental designs, is left in place, fine mosaics representing paintings, which are delicate and easily destroyed, are wisely taken up and placed in the Museum.

Photograph by Giacomo Brogi taken about twenty years ago: “5075Pompeii. Wall of the Temple of Augustus, also known as the Pantheon”, showing the roof added to protect the decorative scheme in situ. It is actually a photograph of the Macellum, which brings home to me the importance of cataloguing the finds and the site accurately for future generations. While photographs like this seem frivolous (they sell well to tourists!), the photographer assures me that do an important job of reminding people that these rooms were once occupied – by people very similar to those who live in the Naples area today - and of preserving the paintings, which are beginning to fade in the sun. You can see where a superior painting has been removed to by being cut out of the plaster!

Photograph of “Edoardo in Pompei” by Wilhelm von Plueschow. Pompeians cast in plaster. Fiorelli’s new excavation method – digging down through the layers rather than tunnelling into houses, meant that he noticed voids in the volcanic material. When he poured plaster into them he discovered that these voids were moulds of things like wooden furniture and even people.

When I came to Pompeii as a visitor I entered on the South-East side of the city through the Porta Marina , but today as an actual archaeologist I enter through the Nola Gate on the other side of the city in Regio IV, which is almost entirely unexcavated. From here you can see the amphitheatre, where I hope to examine some of the graffiti in the tunnels beneath. These scratches in the plaster of the walls is one of the things which helps me feel so close to the Pompeians of 1800 years ago, whose lives were cut short by the volcano.

Herr Mau has told me that his house has an inscription dating from the reign of Nero – I cannot wait to see it!

These are a few of my favourites from wandering around:

Vici Nuceriae in alia DCCCLVS, fide bona. ’I beat Nuceria at dice: 855.5 denarii ($150 US dollars) – without cheating!

Accounts from a bakery (Regio I. iii. 27) in which an as (a small bronze coin, is worth 1½d):Oleum, l[ibra], a[ssibus] IV; palea a. V; faenum a. XVI; diaria a. V; furfure a.VI; viria I a. III. Oil, 1 pound, 4 asses; straw, 5 asses; hay, 16 asses; a day's wages, 5 asses; bran, 6 asses; one wreath for the neck, 3 asses;.

The discovery of bread in one of the ovens of a bakery in Pompeii, 1870. Note the applauding female onlooker – Polly, I wish you were here to see Pompeii too… Walter Washburn, Esq., in Pompeii. October 1892.

I asked Wilhelm von Plueschow if he would take a picture of me in the Forum Triangulare. Here it is. You will be pleased, Polly, that I did not succumb to his kind offer of wearing one of his togas!

View of the Forum Triangulare, looking toward Vesuvius, which is smoking today…. On the left, are the remains of the Doric temple and of the altars with a well house in front; on the right, is the exterior of the large theatre. Interior of the amphitheatre, looking west with a transverse section of the amphitheatre, showing the tunnels under the seating where lots of graffiti can be found; much of it concerning gladiators and not all of it yet recorded.

"O Campani [inhabitants of a neighborhood – vicus -- in Pompeii], you perished together with the Nucerians in that victory." This refers to the riot in the amphitheatre in 59 AD and was published by Champfleury in his Histoire de las Caricature Antique in 1866. Scratched into the podium of a tomb in the necropolis outside the Nucerian Gate (the Gate nearest the amphitheatre) is this graffito of two Thracian gladiators.

Marcus Attilius (left) and Lucius Raecius Felix (right). The numbers after their names give their form. M. Attilius had fought 1 and won 1; L. Raecius had fought and won 12. The former won (V). The latter, despite losing was allowed to leave the arena alive (M) – no wonder he was called ‘Lucky’! 17th October 1892

As luck would have it, I saw this graffito today recording the birth of a litter of either puppies or piglets, both were kept by the Pompeians. I’ve expanded the abbreviations used in my transcription. XV K[alendas] Nov[embres] Puteolana peperit mascl[os] III, femel[as] II.

October 17 Puteolana had a litter consisting of 3 males and 2 females. On my visit to the Museum in Naples I drew the dog from a mosaic and hope that you can make out the pig in the sacrificial scene from a household shrine (Lararium) originally in insula VIII.2. I thought you might like to see some actual Pompeian hand- writing. These graffiti are going to be published in the Corpus of Latin Inscriptions (CIL) volume iv, 1891-93-94. So, again, we get to see something before anyone else, aren’t we lucky? Note how dots were used to separate words or to divide lines of poetry.

6. littera theorianis semperdictvra salvtem / nominenvnc · dextri tempvs inomnemanet (Anon.) 7. svrda · sit · orantitva janva · laxaferentj / avdiat · exclvsi · verba · receptvs · [a]man[s] (Ov. Am. 1,8,77) janitor · addantjs · vigilet · si · pvlsat · jnanis / svrdvs · in · obdvctam · somniet · vsq[ve ·] seram (Prop. 4[5],5,47) On the walls of the Basilica a discouraged suitor consoles himself with these lines from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria Quid pote durum saxso aut quid mollius unda? Dura tamen molli saxsa cavantur aqua. What is so hard as rock, or what can be softer than water? Hard rocks nevertheless by water are worn away.

The addition of an s to saxo and the use of quid pote instead of quid magis reminds us that this region of Italy had ties to Greece. The fact that Ovid is quoted on a wall shows that the Pompeians were not only literate, but well read too.

Many of the graffiti are concerned with love: Quisquis amat, valeat, pereat qui nescit amare; Bis tanto pereat quisquis amare vetat. Good health to you, lovers all; Who knows not how to love, be cursed; But oh may double ruin fall On him who sets out love to worst!

This last find is particularly poignant, as it could refer to our own dear Queen and Empress of India and wish her luck in all her enterprises: Victoria, vale, et ubique es, suaviter sternutes Health to you,Victoria, and wherever you are may you sneeze sweetly. Domus L. Albusius Celsus

The excavation must be coming to an end because most of the house has been almost entirely uncovered thanks to the labour of what seems to be hundreds of men running about, apparently tirelessly, with baskets of debris that has been chipped away by the men with pickaxes.

I can get a good idea of what it looked like earlier in the process from the photographs of the excavation that were taken earlier this year and turned into postcards. Indeed, on closer inspection the one that Marcel sent me from Rome during the summer (‘Ultimi scavi’ – ‘Latest Excavtions’) is of this very house – what an amazing coincidence!

Regio V.2.i

Domus L. Albusius Celsus

20m The Domus L. Albusius Celsus, looking North across the atrium – Herr Mau on the skyline. The Domus L. Albusius Celsus, looking south across the atrium to the Rhodian peristyle garden, which has one side higher than the other. That the decoration of the peristyle garden received its present form before the earthquake is evident from an inscription scratched upon the plaster of one of the columns on the north side:

Nerone Caesare Augusto Cosso Lentulo Cossi fil[io] co[n]s[ulibus] VIII Idus Febr[u]arias Dies Solis, Luna XIIIIX, nun[dinae] Cumis, V nun. Pompeis,—

In the consulship of Nero and of Cossus Lentulus the son of Cossus, - identifies the year as 60 A.D. The dates given in the rest of the inscription are difficult to explain, and the reading of the number after Luna is uncertain. The memorandum seems to indicate that the eighth day before the Ides of February in this year was the market day at Cumae, being Sunday and the sixteenth day after the New Moon; and that the market day at Pompeii came three days later. The inscription is the earliest yet found in which a day of the week is named in connection with a date.

Herr Mau is making detailed records of artefacts recovered and is especially keen – as you would expect - to record the decoration. Now that he has seen some of my sketches, he has invited me to help him with this important work. I wish that I had more knowledge of the myths that the artists were painting, but I am so glad that I can learn about them, as well as about artistic development, from an expert.

For example, all that is left of the painting on the west wall of room 9 is a corner – which I have faithfully reproduced, but I had no idea what it might show. Herr Mau, however, recognised that near to the right margin was the foot of a large chair and that, to the left of that chair, possibly a sceptre and below, an eagle. He explained to me that this was a fresco that included a seated figure of Jupiter, though he would not presume to guess the nature of the scene in which he appeared, although others (like Sogliano) are not so hesitant. He intends to write this up over the winter and publish it in Mitteilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abtheilung Volume VIII next year. Corner of a wall-painting from Room 9. The wall painting on the east wall of Room 9. Compare my water-colour attempt and Herr Mau’s sketch. Even so, he seems pleased with my work.

It is a fresco of Hercules (seated, note the lionskin) and the Trojan Princess Hesione, with the young Priam (in blue and red). Again, you get to see it before publication! Wall decoration in the atrium of the house of Sallust. First or Incrustation Style.

Similar decoration is found in V.2.i Pompeii. Room 18. Here is my watercolour of the east wall of what may be a bedroom or small dining room – a private, rather than a public space within the house.

Longitudinal and transverse sections of The House of the Silver Wedding by Herr A. Mau, intended for future publication. April 1893

The oecus (principle room of a Roman house and sometimes used as a triclinium – dining room) was saved to be excavated as part of the festivities attending the Silver Wedding of the King and Queen of Italy, Umberto and Margherita of Savoy. Not only did their majesties witness the excavation, but so did their imperial guests, including the Emperor and Empress of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II (a grandson of Queen Victoria) and Empress Augusta Viktoria, who were most gracious to their excavating countryman.

We had cleared the peristyle garden long ago and the volcanic debris had been, for the most part, removed from the front part of the oecus, leaving a layer at the bottom about two feet deep. The royal visitors and a small suite of companions, stationed themselves in the corner of the peristyle opposite the opening of the oecus. When all was ready a line of workmen proceeded to draw back the loose fragments of pumice stone, exposing the floor to view. Alas, here nothing was found except the bronze fastenings of the large doors; but a more fruitful outcome followed a similar search in a room of a small house adjoining the oecus on the south, in which several vessels of bronze were brought to light.

April 1893

What is clear is that this is a house “worthy of note” to quote Herr Mau: It is one of the finest examples of a gentleman's residence: the architectural design is extremely sober and classical, the decoration magnificent. Executed in the Samnite epoch, it was renovated in the early 1st century A.D. Worthy of particular attention is the atrium consisting of a colonnade of the Corinthian order, grandiose in proportions and soaring dynamically upwards. Worthy of note are the rooms which flank the peristyle: these offer examples of decoration in the II style. The exedra is elegantly ornamented with festoons; another room shows the original barrel ceilings.

I hope that L. Albusius Celsus enjoyed a visit from royal guests because his house is to be known as The House of the Silver Wedding. Not only that but once it is fully excavated (the façade, inner end of the oecus, and the greater part of the extensive garden on the left side) there is talk of reconstructing it, so that visitors can experience the house as a house. I do hope this happens and to return to see the light entering the atrium through an impluvium rather than directly from the sky. An artist’s impression of the reconstructed atrium of the House of the Silver Wedding on a rainy day. This is my pastel drawing of a fresco from a villa in Stabiae.

There are so many of these “villas by the sea” on the walls here in Pompeii that I am sure the inhabitants of this city dreamed of owning one. Yet another way in which these people are like us – dreaming of a better life than the one they have, one with fresh air and scenery. I hope that Polly’s move to the country after her marriage makes all her dreams come true.

I intend to visit some villas on the coast at Baiae in the summer, when their owners would have been visiting to escape the August heat in Rome.

Part of Light Night Leeds City Museum Friday 4th October 2013

Bringing the ancient world to life through the Victorian carnival FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY.

Roll up! Roll up! And see the Ancient Worlds Gallery in a whole new light! More information http://carnivalofancientwonders.wordpress.com/