Some treasures unearthed – and an awful lot of spadework
» Pompeii: The New Dig BBC Two, 9pm ★★★★★
You might have read in the news recently about some exciting new archaeological discoveries at Pompeii – the ancient Roman city that was destroyed (and preserved) by a volcanic eruption in 79AD. These included some vivid frescoes and what is thought to be the first-ever pictorial depiction of a pizza. Whether it was a pizza Napoletana was unclear, although Pompeii is of course next door to modern-day Naples – its birthplace.
This news item basically contained the edited highlights of the BBC Two series Pompeii: The New Dig. If you wanted the full back story then the two-part documentary followed the biggest dig in a generation of the worldfamous archaeological site – one-third of the 66-hectare site still remaining unexcavated. Thrilling stuff ? Well, yes and no.
It was moving to see the likes of “body specialist” Dr Valeria Amoretti tenderly dusting the volcanic ash off the newly exposed rib cages of two victims “frozen in time at the moment of death”. After inspecting the skeletons’ pelvises, Dr Amoretti calculated that the victims were women – probably enslaved bakery workers who were crushed to death when their ceiling collapsed under the weight of ash and pumice. The broken bones of a young child lay nearby. Death, she surmised, would have been instantaneous – so small mercies.
The house in which they had sheltered was a bakery, and its inhabitants would probably have stood a better chance of survival outside. Indeed, the second episode looked at whether any Pompeiians did escape. As you can imagine, it was those with access to carts and horses – i.e., not the slaves.
Two of the most startling finds shown on the programme weren’t from the new dig at all, but housed in the Pompeii Museum. One was a charmingly realistic portrait of a husband and wife (most portraits at the time were blandly idealised) and the other was a carbonised loaf of bread. Despite its pitch-black crust, it still looked surprisingly toothsome.
Perhaps there’s an epicurean market for 2,000-year-old carbonised bread – maybe to
accompany the rotten maggotinfested pecorino cheese that is apparently a delicacy in Sardinia.
But back to the excavation, which was carried out by an all-Italian team of archaeologists. This seemed right and proper and gave a special thrill to one expert who was born in nearby Scafati, especially when he discovered the pizza fresco. Their deliberations were all in Italian, which revealed that Italians actually do exclaim “mamma mia!” quite a lot, but also necessitated subtitles.
These may have deterred subtitle-averse viewers. For those of us following the captions, it felt like an unnecessary and slightly patronising duplication to have narrator Kate Fleetwood summarise what had just been said.
At least we were spared naff reconstructions featuring non-speaking actors in togas. Instead, simple animated frescos illustrated the workings of a Pompeiian bakery or its workers cowering from the sight of Vesuvius blowing its top.
Pompeii: The New Dig was a BBC co-production with the Open University and the worthy French state cultural broadcaster France Arte, which might explain its slightly stolid consistency. It’s easy to imagine Lance and Andy from Detectorists, or Alice Roberts and her Digging for Britain team, sitting riveted throughout as the archaeologists dug, scraped and brushed away at the ruins.
The less invested might have become twitchy with the remote control, however. Archaeological digs require an awful lot of spadework for the occasional exciting discovery. Something similar could be said about this thorough but rather workmanlike documentary.
At least we were spared naff reconstructions with actors in togas