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Italy on tight deadline for Pompeii restoration

Italy has until the end of the year to apply UNESCO-enforced measures to upgrade Pompeii or face having the ancient site scrapped from the prestigious World Heritage list.

Published: 26 November 2013 11:41 CET

Italy on tight deadline for Pompeii restoration

Italy has until December 31st to apply UNESCO-enforced measure to upgrade the ancient site of Pompeii. Photo: Jeremy Thompson/Flickr

Italian authorities on Monday signed an agreement in line with the UNESCO stipulations, which includes a buffer zone around the site and video monitoring of 50 percent of the area, to be applied by December 31st, the news agency ANSA reported, citing a note from the archeology superintendent’s office in Naples.

The European Commission in March approved a €105m fund for Pompeii’s restoration, to be combined with the same amount from Italy.

The move followed a UNESCO report in January that documented structural shortcomings and light damage at the 44-hectare site in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, where collapsing walls and houses have sparked international concern.

The giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius devastated Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago in 79 AD but the ash and rock helped preserve many buildings almost in their original state, as well as the curled-up corpses of victims

In July, Giovanni Puglisi, head of the UNESCO National Commission in Italy, warned the government to act fast to adopt suitable measures for Pompeii, which has long been a sponge for funds then used poorly or syphoned off by criminal organisations.

Italy’s culture budget has been reduced by two thirds over the last five years, Massimo Bray, the culture minister, said at the time.

Italy, which is relying heavily on tourism to help boost the economy, moved quickly to reassure UNESCO it was doing its utmost to get the repairs made.

"Our highly symbolic monuments are our best calling cards throughout the world," Massimo Bray, the culture minister, said in July.

"Pompeii is a symbol for our country. UNESCO's reprimand is an alarm which I take very seriously and we are already working to overcome the site's urgent problems.”

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Archaeologists in Pompeii who discovered a room which likely housed slaves.

Archaeologists said the newly-discovered room in Pompeii likely housed slaves charged with maintaining chariots. Photo: Archaeological Park of Pompeii press office.

The little room with three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest was discovered during a dig at the Villa of Civita Giuliana, a suburban villa just a few hundred metres from the rest of the ancient city.

An almost intact ornate Roman chariot was discovered here at the start of this year, and archaeologists said Saturday that the room likely housed slaves charged with maintaining and prepping the chariot.

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“This is a window into the precarious reality of people who rarely appear in historical sources, written almost exclusively by men belonging to the elite,” said Pompeii’s director general Gabriel Zuchtriegel.

Photo: Archaeological Park of Pompeii press office.

The “unique testimony” into how “the weakest in the ancient society lived… is certainly one of the most exciting discoveries in my life as an archaeologist,” he said in a press release.

Pompeii was buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, killing those who hadn’t managed to leave the city in time. They were either crushed by collapsing buildings or killed by thermal shock.

The 16-square metre (170-square feet) room was a cross between a bedroom and a storeroom: as well as three beds – one of which was child sized – there were eight amphorae, stashed in a corner.

Photo: Archaeological Park of Pompeii press office.

The wooden chest held metal and fabric objects that seem to be part of the harnesses of the chariot horses, and a chariot shaft was found resting on one of the beds.

The remains of three horses were found in a stable in a dig earlier this year.

“The room grants us a rare insight into the daily reality of slaves, thanks to the exceptional state of preservation of the room,” the Pompeii archaeological park said.

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Image: Archaeological Park of Pompeii press office.

Experts had been able to make plaster casts of the beds and other objects in perishable materials which left their imprint in the cinerite — the rock made of volcanic ash — that covered them, it said.

The beds were made of several roughly worked wooden planks, which could be adjusted according to the height of the person who used them.

The webbed bases of the beds were made of ropes, covered by blankets.

While two were around 1.7 metres long, one measured just 1.4 metres, and may therefore have belonged to a child.

The archaeological park said the three slaves may have been a family.

Archaeologists found several personal objects under the beds, including amphorae for private things, ceramic jugs and what might be a chamber pot.

The room was lit by a small upper window, and there are no traces or wall decorations, just a mark believed to have been left by a lantern hung on a wall.

“This incredible new discovery at Pompeii demonstrates that today the archaeological site has become not only one of the most desirable visitor destinations in the world, but also a place where research is carried out and new and experimental technologies are employed,” said Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini.

“Thanks to this important new discovery, our knowledge of the daily life of ancient Pompeians has been enriched, particularly of that element of society about which little is known even today. Pompeii is a model of study that is unique in the world.”

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The excavation is part of a programme launched in 2017 aimed at fighting illegal activity in the area, including tunnel digging to reach artefacts that can be sold on illicit markets.

The Villa of Civita Giuliana had been the target of systematic looting for years. There was evidence some of the “archaeological heritage” in this so-called Slave Room had also been lost to looters, the park said.

Damage by grave robbers in the villa had been estimated so far at almost two million euros ($2.3 million), it added.

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