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CONCERT

Elton John to rock Pompeii’s Roman amphitheatre

British singer Sir Elton John will play an unusual concert this summer, inside an ancient Roman amphitheatre of Pompeii.

Published: 4 March 2016 10:27 CET
Elton John to rock Pompeii's Roman amphitheatre
Elton John will play a concert at Pompeii this summer. Photo:Tasso Marcelo/AFP

The 68-year-old will perform live for a crowd of just 2,000 people at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii on July 12th.

The amphitheatre is the oldest stone building of its kind, built in 80 BC.

Until 79 AD, when the city was buried by the erupting Mount Vesuvius, thousands of ancient Romans regularly crammed inside to watch gladiators do battle.

Sir Elton will be the first global music icon to play Pompeii since UK prog rockers Pink Floyd, who recorded Live at Pompeii in 1971, but did not perform in front of an audience for the occasion.

But the archaeological superintendent of Pompeii, Massimo Ossanna, has long made clear his desire to bring more live music to the ruins to raise the profile of the venue.
 

“It's been our aim to start using the amphitheatre as a live music venue for the last two years so we're really excited about the event and hope to have more information soon,” a spokesperson for Pompeii told The Local.


The venue is one of the world's best preserved Roman theatres. Photo: Wikimedia.

Other historic sites, such as the ancient theatre of Taormina, regularly host global names.

But opening up Italy's historical treasures to global acts hasn't been without controversy.

In 2014, the Rolling Stones paid just €8,000 for the privilege of playing at Rome's Circus Maximus, a price agreed with the former mayor Ignazio Marino.  Thanks to the scandal, the cost of hiring the venue has been raised to at least €200,000. American rocker Bruce Springsteen will play there in July.

“Of course, every time a concert is played in a cultural site like Pompeii the law means the artist must pay royalties, which go towards maintaining our cultural treasures,” the spokesperson added. 

Sir Elton is no stranger himself to sparking controversy in Italy. In 2010, the star received €750,000 of EU money from the city of Naples to play a free concert in the city centre.

The city was later ordered to reimburse the EU for using its funds in an inappropriate way.

But the singer, who has 27 multi-platinum albums to his name and has sold over 250 million records, will no dount do much to raise the profile of the venue, located at Italy's second most-visited tourist attraction, after the Colosseum.

It is not currently known how much a ticket will cost,  but given the limited amount available they are likely change hands for hundreds, if not thousands, of euros in the run-up to the concert.

For his part, Sir Elton is expected to play some tracks from his latest album, Wonderful Crazy Night, as well as belting out the classics from his repertoire.

In addition to the concert at Pompeii, the star has also confirmed two other shows in Italy. On July 15th he will play Piazza Colbert in Barolo, Piedmont and on July 16th he'll perform at Piazzola sul Brenta, in the region of Veneto.

 

 

 

 

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HISTORY

Italian archaeologists uncover slave room at Pompeii in ‘rare’ find

Pompeii archaeologists said Saturday they have unearthed the remains of a "slave room" in an exceptionally rare find at a Roman villa destroyed by Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.

Published: 6 November 2021 14:46 CET
Updated: 8 November 2021 15:51 CET
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.

READ ALSO: 8 things you probably didn’t know about the Romans

“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.

READ ALSO: Four civilizations in Italy that pre-date the Roman Empire

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.”

READ ALSO: Why is Italy called Italy?

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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