Latest news with #Pompeii
Times
12-06-2025
- General
- Times
Pompeii's ‘perfume garden' replanted as it was 2,000 years ago
A walled garden in Pompeii that once produced exquisite floral perfumes has been brought back to life as part of a campaign to recreate the daily life of the ancient Roman city. The Garden of Hercules — named after a statue of the classical hero found there — has been replanted with 800 roses, 1,200 violets, rosemary and vines, as it was 2,000 years ago. Archaeologists excavating the city believe the owner of the garden once crushed flowers in olive oil and grape juice to create perfumes for sale before Pompeii was buried by ash and pumice during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. 'Pompeii was full of gardens and they are crucial to understanding the city, hence recreating the Garden of Hercules,' Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the site director, said. Experts digging the garden in the 1950s first suspected its function when biological traces of roses were found. Since then, impressions left in the ground by vine trellises have been found and casts taken of holes in the earth have revealed that the roots of olive trees and vines were once present. Research has shown that the owner of the property expanded the garden by buying and demolishing an adjacent building after an earthquake damaged the city in 62AD, just 17 years before Vesuvius wiped it out. Proof that perfume was produced was the discovery of a collection of glass perfume containers at the site. Experts also found, and have recreated, an ingenious irrigation system which allowed slaves bringing water to decant it through a hole in the garden wall without entering from the street. The water flowed into channels that circulated around the planting beds. Large dolia — earthenware pots — were partly interred along the route of the channels with their apertures just above ground levels to act as reservoirs for water entering the irrigation system. 'If a gardener needed to give extra water to a plant, they could take it from a dolia,' said gardens historian Maurizio Bartolini, who worked on the replanting. Bartolini said he suspected the garden may have been used by its owner to experiment with new perfumes by combining roses, violets and rosemary, rather than produce scents for sale. 'It is 30 metres by 30 metres and possibly not large enough for full-scale production. You would need 2,000 roses to create 5cc of perfume,' he said. • Scroll charred by eruption of Vesuvius finally reveals secrets Bartolini said the flowers were either mixed with olive oil or juice from grapes harvested early. 'Those grapes would have the acidic content needed to fix the perfume of the flowers, but the scent would fade fast — you needed to wear it within a week,' he said. An inscription at the entrance states in Latin, 'Cras Credo', which translates as 'Credit will be offered tomorrow.' Zuchtriegel said it was evidence of typical Pompeii humour. 'It reminds me of the sign I once saw in a Paris restaurant stating 'Everything is free tomorrow'. We also see the Pompeii humour in the graffiti and in official documents that include jokes about emperors,' he said. Zuchtriegel said the garden had once contained a small temple and an arbor to dine in the shade of during the summer. 'This was a productive place but also really beautiful,' he said. • The last moments of Pompeii — the newest discoveries from the doomed city The reopening of the replanted garden this week follows an announcement in March that a wine grower will replant vines in Pompeii on the spot where a vineyard was once located. 'That is inside the city. We are also planting just outside the city on land seized from the mafia,' Zuchtriegel said. 'The green parts of Pompeii were once seen as a maintenance problem, almost separated from the archaeology. Now they are seen as an essential part of it,' he added.
The Independent
05-06-2025
- The Independent
Structures partially collapse at Pompeii archaeological site after earthquake
A minor earthquake in southern Italy has led to damage to structures within the Pompeii archaeological site. Officials confirmed on Thursday that a wall and a vault had partially collapsed. The quake, measuring 3.2 in magnitude, is the latest in a series of tremors originating near the Campi Flegrei super volcano, not far from Naples. The affected section of Pompeii had previously sustained damage during a major earthquake in 1980. Restoration work had been carried out since. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the site's director, said that inspections are underway to ascertain whether other areas have been affected by the quake. No injuries were reported in the shake. The damaged structure did not house any frescoes or movable relics. Pompeii was famously destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The wealthy town, which was home to between 10,000 and 20,000 people, was largely preserved underneath a thick layer of volcanic ash. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it 'provides a complete picture of an ancient Roman city'.
Reuters
05-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
Earthquake damages part of Pompeii site in southern Italy
ROME, June 5 (Reuters) - A minor earthquake in southern Italy has caused the partial collapse of a wall and a portion of a vault at the Pompeii archaeological site, authorities said on Thursday. The quake with a magnitude of 3.2 on Thursday morning was the latest in a series of tremors centred on the nearby Campi Flegrei super volcano close to the city of Naples. The affected area of Pompeii had been damaged in a major earthquake that hit southern Italy in 1980 and had since been shored up and restored. There were no frescoes or movable relics in the damaged structure and no one was injured. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the site's director, said checks were being carried out to ensure no other areas had been affected. The ancient settlement of Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
03-06-2025
- General
American tourists speak out after escaping Mount Etna eruption
Two American tourists are speaking out after escaping the eruption of Mount Etna in Italy. The stratovolcano, which is situated on the east coast of Sicily, first began erupting on Monday, sending thick clouds of gas and molten rock spewing into the air. Nicholas DiLeonardi and Michelle Nigro-DiLeonardi of New York City are honeymooning in Italy and were hiking on the mountain when they said they noticed smoke nearby turn a dark shade of red. The couple said they also heard a loud boom. "People were continuing to hike and go further up," Nigro-DiLeonardi recalled. "We saw a bunch of Jeeps going up, but it was getting pretty intense. I felt a bit nervous." "When we were up there, I was like, 'OK, if this is another Pompeii, at least we're together,'" DiLeonardi added, referencing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., which wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis. Video footage of Etna's latest eruption shows fast-moving clouds of hot volcanic ash -- called a pyroclastic flow -- and lava bursting into the sky before flowing onto the mountain's surface. Marcello Moro, a helicopter tour pilot who was at Mount Etna on Monday, described what he saw from the air. "The activity became stronger and stronger, so I decided to get far away and to go for landing," Moro said. Mount Etna is the tallest and most active volcano in Europe, and Monday's eruption is the fourth one since November 2022. There have been no reported injuries or damage from Monday's eruption but officials are urging people to stay away from the crater.
News.com.au
31-05-2025
- General
- News.com.au
Unthinkable new find inside Pompeii could change everything
A scattering of pock marks on Pompeii's city walls may prove a mythological 'super weapon' may have been real after all. At a glance, they look like acts of vandalism found across the ancient world – from the face of the Great Sphynx to the great standing stones of Britain. Few historic sights have escaped the temptation of trigger-happy troops, hunters and tourists. And the marks of these bullet impacts still mar their surfaces centuries later. But researchers examining the scars of battle in Pompeii 's stone walls near the city's main gates for the Vesuvius and Herculaneum roads have found similar depressions. Only the can't have been caused by bullets. Pompei was buried under volcanic debris as Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Gunpowder was first used in handheld weapons 900 years later, in China. So what were these tightly grouped clusters of diamond-shaped impressions? They were too small to be ancient artillery. And too deep to be caused by hand-drawn bows. University of Campania researcher Adriana Rossi has found the impact marks in Pompeii's excavated walls are unlike anything ever seen before. And only one mythological device could have caused them. Forensic evidence The University of Campania academics scanned the impact points in 3D and digitally reconstructed the properties of the stone wall. Their models of the trajectories and penetration depths suggest the heavy iron points that caused them must have been travelling at about 109 meters per second. The deep gouges were in groups of four or five. And their even spacing suggests they were fired together, or in very close succession. Only one weapon known from ancient writings could produce such results. This is the polybolos, a 'machinegun' style crossbow-like weapon invented by the Greeks during the 3rd Century BC. But the polybolos was an antipersonnel weapon. Not a wall breaching device. The study argues the marks in the wall were made when the iron bolts fell slightly short of their intended targets. The 'gunners' would have simply upped their aim, and fired again. The evidence fits the known history of Pompeii. A century before being buried, it had been besieged. The free city had rebelled against the growing power of Rome. Its citizens wanted to restore their independence. But the famous Roman general, Sulla, was sent to quell the insurrection in 89BC. Surviving accounts tell how he attacked Pompeii 's port with 'artillery', generally thought to be catapults and large ballistae (heavy bolt throwers). General Sulla entered Pompeii once the walls were breached. The surviving defenders quickly capitulated, and the city was formally annexed as part of the Roman Republic. Most of its citizens were granted citizenship. And many of the Roman legionaries involved in the siege were gifted properties in and around the city. A century later, the coastal city had become a holiday resort for Rome's rich and famous. From myth to reality It's not entirely certain how the ancient 'machine gun' worked. No surviving example has ever been discovered. But a description of its mechanics is contained in the writings of Philo of Byzantium (Philo Mechanicus). This inventor lived in the Greek city of Alexandria, the location of history's greatest library, in about 250BC. Its university was a boiling pot of philosophy, science and engineering. Philo embraced the emerging concept of physics. He is credited with some of the earliest examples of automation and robotics. And his writings included treatises on leverage (The Mochlica) and the design of siege engines (The Belopoeica). The polybolos (which, in Greek, means 'many-shot-thrower') relied on torsion (the springlike power of tightly twisted cords bending timber) as its power source. Up to 15 bolts (large arrows) were stored in a magazine above the device. These were successively fed into the crossbow-like firing mechanism by a gear-driven chain-drive – the first known example of its kind. All the user had to do was pull a trigger, and the stored torsion power could unleash several volleys of bolts. Once expended, torsion energy could be restored by winding a windlass winch and the magazine reloaded. It was the most complex weapon system of its time.
