Those living in the area where Jamestown was settled must have had mixed feelings about the arrival of the English in 1607. One of their first reactions was hostility based on their previous experience with Spanish explorers along their coastline. As the colony`s fortunes deteriorated during its first two years, Captain John Smith`s leadership saved the colony. Part of this leadership involved exploring the area and establishing trade with local people. Unfortunately for the Native Americans, Smith believed that the English should treat them as the Spanish had: to compel them to “drudgery, work, and slavery,’ so English colonists could live “like soldiers upon the fruit of their labor.” Thus, when his negotiations for food occasionally failed, Smith took what he wanted by force.
During these excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realized these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies, and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to recreate the forms of Vesuvius’s victims. This technique is still in use today, with a clear resin now used instead of plaster, as it is more durable, and does not destroy the bones, allowing further analysis.
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In this way the data collected during the excavations could be used to help with the restoration of the ancient buildings and of their interiors – although the most important wall paintings and mosaics still continued to be stripped and transported to Naples.
Fiorelli also took the topography of the town and divided it into a system of ‘regiones’, ‘insulae’ and ‘domus’ – and he developed the use of plaster casts to recreate the forms of plants and human bodies that had been covered by the volcanic ash, and had then left a hole – shaped in the form of the plant or person – in that ash after putrefaction.
Michele Ruggiero, Giulio De Petra, Ettore Pais and Antonio Sogliano, continued Fiorelli’s work in the following years, and during the last 20 years of the century began to restore the roofs of the houses with wood and tiles – in order to protect the remaining wall paintings and mosaics inside.
During these years many famous scholars came to study the remains of Pompeii, and one of them, August Mau, in 1882, created a system for categorizing the Pompeian pictures into a range of decorative styles. His work still provides the standard framework for the study of these ancient Roman paintings.
Vittorio Spinazzola, starting from around 1910, uncovered the Casa di Loreio Tiburtino, the Casa dell’Efebo, the Casa di Trebio Valente and Via dell’Abbondanza, which goes from west to east all along the length of the town.
He reconstructed the façades of the houses along this street with their balconies, upper floors and roofs, using a meticulous excavation technique. In doing so he demonstrated how it was possible both to understand the dynamics of how the buildings had been buried in the first place, and also what the original structure of the houses had been – thus making it possible to restore them accurately.
