an introduction - The British School at Rome

CONSERVATION OF THE SACRED AT ANGKOR WAT: FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON LIVING HERITAGE 187
ARTICLE
The Herculaneum Conservation Project:
Introduction
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
ABSTRACT
This short text places the archaeological site of Herculaneum, Italy and the Herculaneum Conservation Project in context,
and introduces the volume of articles on this subject. The author outlines the importance of the site, and the public/private
partnership that was launched in order to tackle the problems of decay there.
One conventional image of archaeology sees a role for
academic groups, universities and research institutes, both
nationally and internationally, as responsible for
excavation, recording, study and publication but not for
conservation. In the case of Italy, this division of labour is
accentuated by the constitutional obligation of the Italian
State to take responsibility for tutela – the guardianship of
cultural heritage. For over two centuries, going back to
Johann Winckelmann [1] in 1762, foreign archaeologists
have raised protests against the supposed shortcomings
of the national authorities responsible for the two major
Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the
AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Figures 1 and 2). The
underlying assumption is that it is the national authority’s
problem, not ours, and that when we see decorated
surfaces fading and structures crumbling (as has been
the case throughout that period), it is the responsibility of
the Italian State, and a symbol of their neglect. Not only
does this ignore the law of entropy, which implies that the
remains of the past must ineluctably decay, but it attributes
to the archaeologist an undeserved moral high ground:
you the State, not I the archaeologist, are the problem.
But, as we know, archaeology itself is a fundamentally
destructive process, and it is excavation, in releasing
the remnants of the past from the subterranean
equilibrium that has preserved them, that creates the
problem (Figure 3).
The Herculaneum Conservation Project was
undertaken in the conviction that the extraordinary
challenges of conservation of the Vesuvian sites [2] are an
international responsibility and cannot be shouldered by
the national heritage authority alone, and also in the belief
that the division between archaeology and conservation is
artificial and damaging. The project is the initiative of the
Packard Humanities Institute, which, even before its
inception at Herculaneum in 2001, had been engaged in a
number of major projects of archaeological rescue,
excavation and conservation, notably at Butrint in Albania
and Zeugma in Turkey. The context for intervention at
Herculaneum lay in the policy of the archaeological
Superintendent of Pompeii, Piero Guzzo, since his arrival
there in 1995: the acknowledgement of the critical
condition of the sites, the appeal to the international
archaeological and heritage community for help and
collaboration, and the determination to reform the systems
of management of the Vesuvian sites. Already in the late
1990s, the World Monuments Fund supported the creation
of a digital plan of Pompeii, as an essential basis of heritage
management and planning. When the Herculaneum
project was launched, it was in tandem with the parallel
project at another Vesuvian site, Stabiae, Restoring Ancient
Stabiae. Despite its use of external funding and outside
consultants, the activities of the Herculaneum
Conservation Project are as much a part of the
Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei’s policy and
management as those activities wholly financed by the State.
The project is by its nature experimental: not designed
simply to deliver definitive solutions, but to address
recalcitrant and persistent problems, and to operate
with the flexibility to test answers, old and new.
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites | 2007 | volume 8 | pages 187–190
DOI 10.1179/175355208X320847
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188 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
Figure 1. Map of the Vesuvian area showing Herculaneum in its
context. Reproduced with permission from Ines Maddaloni/HCP.
Figure 3. The main excavated area of the archaeological site of
Herculaneum, with its phases of excavation. 1: excavations 1828–1875;
2: excavations 1927–1958; 3: excavations 1960–1969; 4: excavations
1980–1994. Reproduced with permission from Ines Maddaloni/HCP.
Figure 2. The archaeological site of Herculaneum in its urban context,
surrounded by the modern city of Ercolano on the lower slopes of
Mount Vesuvius. Reproduced with permission from Kate Cook/Firefly.
Fundamental to that flexibility is the freedom enjoyed
by a private sponsor to operate outside the straitjacket
of the legislative restrictions and bureaucratic practices
that make fresh approaches and new thinking so difficult
within the State system [3]. Even the setting up of the
legal framework to enable this to become possible took
the first four years of the project: it was thanks to the
perception of our legal consultant, supported at the
highest level by the legal office of the Ministry of Culture,
that the newly passed law [3] to promote cultural
sponsorship could be used to create a suitable framework
for undertaking building work at private expense, and
under private management [4], on a public monument.
At the same time, as David W. Packard, president of
the Packard Humanities Institute, rightly insists, there is a
risk that a short-term injection of private funding may
prove a ‘resource curse’ unless carefully directed to
achieving a solution capable of enduring beyond its own
end. Neither party to the collaboration, the Packard
Humanities Institute as sponsor, and the Soprintendenza,
aspires to resolving for ever the problems of the site.
Rather, the project aims to address the immediate
situations of emergency and, especially, the infrastructural
problems of water-management, access and roofing, to
understand better through experiment and testing the
root causes of decay, and to try out and put in place
models of continuous care which have the best chance of
slowing down the rate of decay into the future [5, 6].
The project is not limited in its aims to conservation. It
also aspires to create new archaeological knowledge of
the site, and to extend the appreciation of the site among
the professional communities and the general public. The
key to success lies in the creation of a multidisciplinary
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THE HERCULANEUM CONSERVATION PROJECT: INTRODUCTION
189
team, of archaeologists, conservator-restorers, architects,
engineers, scientists, surveyors and IT specialists, under
the orchestration of a project manager. Hence, at every
stage, archaeological investigation has underpinned
conservation work. It rapidly emerged that we were not
simply dealing with a fragment of the Roman past, but
one carefully recomposed by its main excavator, Amedeo
Maiuri, and that thorough understanding was needed
both of the precise processes by which he had excavated
and reconstructed each building, and of his own vision of
public presentation and conservation of the site [7]. The
loss of the transmitted knowledge of the workforce set up
by Maiuri is one of the fundamental causes of accelerated
decay on the site. At the same time, it has emerged how
closely archaeological investigation and conservation go
hand in hand. The need to address the overriding problem
of water management led to the reopening of the vast
Roman sewers that run under the Insula Orientalis II
area of the site; renewed excavation there has generated
a massive new dataset of household refuse and organic
materials that can cast significant light on the economic
and social life of the inhabitants of this multi-storey
complex [8].
The advice of our engineers and architects led to a
focus on the problems of the precipitous edge of the site,
dangerously steep in profile, heavily overgrown with
vegetation, and putting at risk not only the ancient
structures below but the modern properties situated
perilously close to the edge of the excavations. The
development of a dialogue between all interested parties,
especially the Comune di Ercolano, the local city authorities,
whose area of responsibility seems to drop off as abruptly
as the edge of the site itself, made possible a new campaign
of demolition and clearance at the north-western corner
of the site. The fact that this corner overlies the public
buildings at the heart of the ancient city creates at least the
future prospect of making better sense of a site whose
present limits end abruptly at its most interesting point.
Artefacts, too, form an integral part of the material
record of an ancient city. Those of Herculaneum are
unusually rich, thanks both to the exceptional preservation
of wood and other organic materials, and to the fact that
the volcanic overburden protected the city from the
systematic looting to which Pompeii was subjected in
antiquity. But by a double irony of fate, these finds were
never published, since Maiuri died before writing the
volume that was to have been dedicated to them and,
although Maiuri went to exceptional pains to make the
objects visible to the public by displaying them in the shops
and houses where they were found, for the last 30 years
they have been invisible in the purpose-built Antiquarium
on-site which has, since its construction, never been
completed and opened to the public. The current project
has produced a new catalogue of all these objects, and is
working with the Soprintendenza to ensure the opening of
the Antiquarium.
A final aim of the project lies in the emphasis placed on
public inclusion. In the end, no site will survive unless both
the outside visitors and the local population appreciate
and treasure it. The final part of Amedeo Maiuri’s legacy
that the project aims to revitalise is the International Centre
for the Study of Herculaneum, based in the nearby Villa
Ravone, which is commonly known as the Villa Maiuri after
the study centre that he set up. Thanks to an agreement
between the Soprintendenza and the Comune di Ercolano,
an Association has been formed [9] and a three-year
programme launched, financed by a grant of public funds,
to advance the knowledge of Herculaneum at both an
international and a local level. In collaboration with the
International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and
Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), a significant
part of its mid-career training course in 2007 on the
Conservation of Built Heritage demonstrated what a rich
case study Herculaneum could offer to a group of
conservation specialists from 22 countries, and what a
positive contribution that international community could
bring to reuniting the ancient and modern cities.
The following articles illustrate in more detail some
chosen aspects of the project. What should be underlined
here is the fundamental importance of the close
collaboration between members of the project team and
members of the Soprintendenza staff, directed by the Site
Director, Maria Paola Guidobaldi. The project is overseen
by a Scientific Committee that combines the expertise of
the Superintendent, Piero Guzzo, and colleagues in the
Italian State system with international experts in
archaeology and conservation. All share the vision of David
W. Packard, that Herculaneum is a uniquely precious site
that deserves to be preserved for future generations, and
that can be preserved if we work together.
◗ Andrew Wallace-Hadrill has directed the
Herculaneum Conservation Project since it began
in 2001. He is Professor of Classics at Reading
University (1987-) and since 1995 he has been Director
of the British School at Rome. He has published
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190 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
papers on a wide range of Roman themes.
Contact details: British School at Rome, Via Gramsci
61, 00197 Roma, Italy. Email: director@bsrome.it
REFERENCES
1. German archaeologist and historian of ancient art
(1717–1768).
2. On 1 April 2008 the heritage authority responsible for
the Vesuvian archaeological sites – including
Herculaneum – merged with that of Naples, leading to
the creation of the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni
Archaeologici di Napoli e Pompei. This occurred as this
special edition of articles on Herculaneum went to
print, so readers will note that all the authors instead
make reference to the Soprintendenza Archeologica di
Pompei, which at the time of writing was responsible for
archaeology around Mount Vesuvius including several
important sites destroyed by the volcanic eruption of
AD 79 including Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae,
Oplontis and Boscoreale (which includes a museum).
The 1997 UNESCO inscription of Pompeii,
Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata (Oplontis) on the
World Heritage List defined them as follows: ‘The
towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and their
associated villas provide a complete and vivid picture of
society and daily life at a specific moment in the past
that is without parallel anywhere in the world.’
3. Thompson, J. Conservation and management
challenges in a public/private initiative for a large
archaeological site (Herculaneum, Italy).
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites,
this volume (2007) 191–204.
4. A third organisation, the British School at Rome,
joined the partnership at this stage to strengthen
operational capacity. For further information on the
project please contact hcp@herculaneum.org. For
further information on the three project partners
see their own websites: Soprintendenza
Archeologica di Pompei www.pompeiisites.org;
Packard Humanities Institute www.packhum.org;
British School at Rome www.bsr.ac.uk.
5. Pesaresi, P. and Martelli Castaldi, M. Conservation
measures for an archaeological site at risk
(Herculaneum, Italy): from emergency to
maintenance. Conservation and Management of
Archaeological Sites, this volume (2007) 215–236.
6. Pesaresi, P. and Rizzi, G. New and existing forms of
protective shelter at Herculaneum: towards
improving the continuous care of the site.
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites,
this volume (2007) 237–252.
7. Camardo, D. Archaeology and conservation at
Herculaneum: from the Maiuri campaign to the
Herculaneum Conservation Project. Conservation
and Management of Archaeological Sites, this volume
(2007) 205–214.
8. Camardo, D. Lo scavo della fogna dell’Insula Orientalis
II. In: P.G. Guzzo and M.P. Guidobaldi (eds) Atti del
convegno internazionale sulle Nuove ricerche
archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003–2006),
Rome, 1–3 February (2007). Electa, Naples
(forthcoming).
9. The local heritage authority, the Soprintendenza
Archeologica di Pompei, and the local city council, the
Comune di Ercolano, are the founding
members of the ‘Associazione Herculaneum’ but were
soon joined by a third partner, the British School at
Rome, which has offered a strong link to the activities
of the Herculaneum Conservation Project.
● Le Projet de Conservation Herculanum:
Introduction
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
RÉSUMÉ
Ce bref article offre un aperçu du site archéologique
d’Herculanum, en Italie, et place le Projet de
Conservation Herculanum dans son contexte. Le texte
sert également d’introduction aux articles de ce volume
sur le même sujet. L’auteur y souligne l’importance du
site, et du partenariat public/privé qui a été lancé afin de
faire face aux problèmes de dégradation sur le site.
● El Proyecto de Conservación Herculano:
Introducción
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
RESUMEN
Este breve artículo coloca al sitio arqueológico de
Herculano y al Proyecto de Conservación Herculano
en contexto. El texto sirve también como introducción
para los artículos en este volumen que tratan de este
tema. El autor subraya la importancia del sitio, y de la
asociación pública/privada que se lanzó con el fin de
hacer frente a los problemas de degradación en el sitio.
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