Annual Report 2008-9 - The British School at Rome

H ERCULANEUM C ONSERVATION P ROJECT
The major project at Herculaneum initiated by the
Packard Humanities Institute, and put into effect by
the British School, in close collaboration with the
Archaeological Superintendency (which now reunites
Pompeii with Naples), is now in its eighth year of activity.
Advances can be reported on two principal fronts. The
first is in the campaign to address the problems of the
infrastructure of the site and bring the movement of water
under control. As roofs are progressively repaired, and the
ancient drainage network put back into action, so the
problems mount at the lowest point of the site, where in
antiquity the town came down to the sea. A major project
of clearing and draining the ancient shoreline has led to a
series of important results. Dramatic evidence accumulates
of how severely the buildings — especially the Suburban
Baths, which were built out to meet the shoreline at a
period when the sea had retreated — were later damaged
as the land rose and the sea returned. This is the result of
the phenomenon called bradyseism whereby the earth’s
crust rises and falls in the build-up to an eruption. The
most unexpected find has been the remains of the
collapsed roof of a nearby building, tossed by the force of
the firestorm of a pyroclastic surge to the beach down
below. It is possible from this find to reconstruct the
entire carpentry of a Roman roof, including its woodpanelled
ceiling.
The second principal area of work has been on the
north-western edge of the site, were preliminary work is
underway to assess the possibilities of new excavation of
the Basilica. A georadar survey by the BSR/Archaeological
Prospection Services Southampton team gave impressive
but rather impenetrable results. Reopening the Bourbon
tunnels has cast a flood of light. The old tunnels are more
numerous and complex than anyone had imagined, a
veritable rabbit-warren; the pottery left behind in the
backfill suggests people had been exploring long before the
official start of excavations under the Bourbons in 1738. A
rich harvest of other finds includes some fragmentary
inscriptions and the gemstone from a signet. The walls of
the tunnels have exposed some rich fresco-work. The most
impressive find, however, came not from this area, but
from the western edge of the town, where our team were
giving assistance: a brilliant insight by Mimmo Esposito led
to the discovery of a fine ‘neo-Attic’ marble relief.
The project has involved increasingly close collaboration
with the personnel of the Soprintendenza, especially the site
director, Maria Paola Guidobaldi, and above all the
Soprintendente himself, Piero Guzzo. Without his vision,
courage and determination, this project could never have
happened, and he will be sorely missed on his retirement
this September. We are also indebted to the Comune of
Ercolano, and its Mayor, Nino Daniele, for enthusiastically
embracing the project, and promoting the new International
Study Centre to bring about closer links between the
international world of specialists and visitors and the local
community. Work is now finished on the restoration of the
Villa Maiuri, where the previous study centre, named after
the great archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri, had its seat; and we
look forward to moving into these new premises in the
autumn. Our warmest thanks go to the Mayor and his staff,
to the Soprintendenza, to the tireless members of the
project team led by Jane Thompson, and above all to David
and Pam Packard, without whose enthusiasm and support
there would literally be no project.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
Director, Herculaneum Conservation Project
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