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Problems of the Urbanization of Pompeii: Excavations 1980–1981

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Paul Arthur
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Extract

Excavations conducted in 1980–81 for the Soprintendenza Archeologica at Pompeii, by the writer, revealed considerable information about conditions in and around the forum from the sixth century B.C. onwards. The results are briefly described and used to indicate hypotheses as to the development of the site. Already in the sixth century the whole 63 ha. appear to have been enclosed by a wall circuit. It is argued that the enceinte may have protected a port of trade sited at a threshold point between Greek, Etruscan and indigenous culture systems, and that the forum area, also possibly enclosed or demarcated, represented the site of formal market activity.

Towards the close of the fourth century, in a changed political milieu, the fortifications were strengthened and evidence of Black Glaze kiln waste indicates the production of consumer commodities, taking the site a stage further from the simple agricultural and market centre suggested. However, it is not until the late third or second century, with its involvement in the ever more complex and expanding Mediterranean market system, that the evidence is clear enough to allow for the application of the term town to the site.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 29 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1986

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References

Notes

1 Ward-Perkins, J. B., ‘Note di topografiae urbanistica’, Pompei 79 (Naples, 1979), 25–39Google Scholar.

2 Brief interim reports are published by aZevi, F., ‘L'attività archeologica nelle province di Napoli e Caserta’, Megale Hellas, Nome e Immagine, Atti del XXI Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia 1981 (Taranto, 1982), 325–58, esp. 332-4Google Scholar; Caro, S. De, ‘Pompei-indagini, scavi, rinvenimenti’, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae, i (1983), 315–21,Google Scholar esp. 316.

3 Wynia, S. L., ‘The excavations inand around the House of M. Lucretius Fronto’, La regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio (Naples, 1982), 327–40Google Scholar.

4 Such silos were probably fairly common in Italy right through from prehistoric times. They may have been the horrea sub terris referred to by the agricultural writers ( Varro, , R.R. 1.57Google Scholar; Columella, 1.6). Examples similar to those found at Pompeii are known in Etruria: cf. Minto, A., ‘Cinghiano (Grosseto)—scoperta di due pozzi granari in loc. ‘Cava alia Rena’ presso S. Lazzaro’,Notizie degli Scavi, xii (1936), 407–8.Google Scholar Medieval silos are fairly well known—D. Andrews in Andrews, D., Osborne, J. and Whitehouse, D., Medieval Lazio (Oxford, 1982), 123–33.Google Scholar For underground grain storage in general, see Hall, D. W. and Haswell, G. A., Underground Storage of Grain (London, 1956).Google Scholar Unfortunately, no traces of the original contents were discovered in the examples found at Pompeii.

5 For similar kiln spacers see Righini, V., ‘Linea-menti di storia economica della Gallia Cisalpina: la produttività fittile in età repubblicana’, Latomus, cxix (1970), pl. Iva-bGoogle Scholar; Guzzo, P. G., ‘S. Maria del Cedro (ex Cipollina) (Cosenza)’, StudiEtruschi, xlvi (1978), 546–7,Google Scholar for examples dating from the mid fourth to end of the third century B.C. Other examples have recently been found in Naples associated with Black Glaze kiln waste.

6 For the whole question see Haverfield, F., Ancient Town-Planning (Oxford,1913), 63–8;Google ScholarGerkan, A. von, Der Stadtplan von Pompeji (Berlin, 1940)Google Scholar; Eschebach, H., Die städtebauliche Entwicklung des antikenPompeji, Röm. Mitt., Erganzungsheft 17 (Heidelberg, 1970),Google Scholar which is shortly to appear in a revised version.

7 cf. Stazio, A., ‘Rapporti fra Pompei ed Ebusus nelle Balearialla luce dei rinvenimenti monetali’, Annali dell'Istituto Italiano di Numismatica, ii (1955), 33–57Google Scholar.

8 Pensabene, P., ‘Nuove acquisizioni nella zona sud-occidentale del Palatino‘, Archeologia Laziale, iv (1981), 101–18,Google Scholar esp. fig. 2.

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10 These amphorae, which appear to represent the most commonly imported type in late Republican Italy, are described by Riley, J., ‘Coarse pottery’ in Lloyd, J. (ed.), Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice), ii (Tripoli, 1979), 91–467,Google Scholar esp. 137-8.

11 Mygind, , op. cit. (note 9)Google Scholar.

12 Prof. L. Richardson has suggested to me that, in his view, the temple could even date as late as Sullan times.

13 Maiuri, A., ‘Pompei, Saggi negliedifici del Foro’, Notizie degli Scavi, xviii (1942), 253–320,Google Scholar repr. in aMaiuri, A., Alla ricerca di Pompei preromana (Naples, 1973), 75–124Google Scholar.

14 These excavations were never published and have recently been taken in hand by Stefano De Caro, whose volume should appear shortly.

15 Mingazzini, P., ‘II santuario della dea Marica alle foci del Garigliano’, Mon. Ant. Lincei, xxxvii (1938), 693–984Google Scholar.

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17 Frederiksen, M., Campania (Hertford, 1984)Google Scholar.

18 D'Agostino, B., ‘II dibattito’, in AION Arch. St. Ant. vi (1984), 275–6Google Scholar.

19 Polanyi, K., ‘Ports of trade in early societies’, J. Econ. Hist. xxiii (1963),30–45;CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. also Hirth, K. G., ‘Interregional trade and the formation of prehistoric gateway communities’, Am. Antiquity, xliii, 1 (1978), 35–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Sandro, N. Di, ‘Appunti sulla distribuzione delle anfore commerciali greche in Campania’, AION Arch. St. Ant. iii (1981), 1–14Google Scholar.

21 Cristofani, M., Gli Etruschi del Mare (Milan, 1983)Google Scholar.

22 Zevi, F., ‘Urbanistica di Pompei’, La regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio (Naples, 1982), 353–65Google Scholar.

23 L. Richardson, ‘The city-plan of Pompeii’, ibid., 341-51.

24 Frederiksen, , op. cit. (note 17), 135:Google ScholarD'Agostino, B., ‘La civiltà del ferro nell'Italia meridionale e nella Sicilia’, Popoli e civilità dell'Italia antica, ii (Rome, 1974), 11–91,Google Scholar esp. 34-7. For the latest phases of S. Marzano see Gastaldi, P., ‘Le necropoli protostoriche della Valle del Sarno: pro-posta per una suddivisione in fasi’, AION Arch. St. Ant. i (1979), 13–59.Google Scholar Recent excavations of a cemetery at Striano, also in the Sarno Valley, are now published by D'Ambrosio, A., ‘Striano—indagini, rinvenimentie ricerche sul territorio’, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae,i (1983), 337–44Google Scholar.

25 For Pompeii, Herculaneum and Surrentum see Strabo, v.4.8.

26 , Ward-Perkins, op. cit. (note I), 29Google Scholar.

27 Chiaromonte, C., ‘I dati di scavo relativi al periodo ellenistico’, in Jovino, M.Bonghi (ed.), Ricerche a Pompei. L'insula 5 della Regio VI dalle origini al 79 d.C. (Rome, 1984), 373–85;Google Scholar cf. also the German excavations of the 1960s in the House of the Faun: Rakob, F., in Zanker, P. (ed.), Hellenismus in Mittelitalien (Göttingen, 1976), 370Google Scholar.

28 aBiddle, M., ‘The towns’, in Wilson, D. M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1976), 99–150Google Scholar.

29 Zevi, F., ‘Urbanistica di Pompei’, La regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio (Naples, 1982), 353–65;Google Scholar cf. Kockel, V., Die Grabbauten vor dent Herkulaner Tor in Pompeji (Mainz, 1983), 9Google Scholar f., n. 78, and aKockel, V. and Weber, B. F., ‘Die Villa delleColonne a Mosaico in Pompeji’, in Römische Mitteilungen, xc (1983), 52Google Scholar.