Investigating the archaeology of death in Pompeii, Italy

ining program in death archaeology. The necropolis of Porta Nola at Pompeii offers an exceptional opportunity to study the population of Pompeii, as well as more broadly wider trends in the Roman population. An examination of the necropolis will permit an investigation of the people’s physical and social characteristics, as well as their habits and customs, and how they lived, died and were buried. The project and practical program are directed by Stephen Kay (BSR), Llorenç Alapont (CDL) and Rosa Albiach (MPV) and coordinated by the Soprintendenza di Pompei.

1. AIM AND OBJECTIVES:
The necropolis of PORTA NOLA is one of the most ideal site for to know how the population of Pompeii was, and in extension the people who lived in imperial Roman Time. La Necropolis of PORTA NOLA seems the ideal site for to know their physical and social characteristics, their habits and customs, modus vivendi, how they lived and died. And how they faced the transcendental moment of the death, both in his daily life and in the catastrophic moment of the eruption of the Vesuvius. It’s an eminently multidisciplinary investigation with the participation of diverse archaeological sciences, funerary archaeology, physical anthropology, bone-archaeology, palynology, etc. All with the most modern technologies applied to the topography, geophysics, radiology, increased reality, etc. The necropolis of PORTA NOLA seems a small and isolated necropolis, but unlike other cemeteries, it offers extraordinary possibilities to know as the members of the different social strata were facing the transcendental fact of the death in a very organized and hierarchy community. The management of the death is also an element of definition and identity of a certain social class as faithful reflection of the status of the alive ones, because the biological and cultural dimension have an evident prolongation after the death. Therefore the necropolis of PORTA NOLA allows us to know the rites of the death and to interpret the gestures and funeral customs of the privileged classes, but also of low classes, as the praetorian soldiers and even the slaves. In fact every social group transforms the natural fact of the death in a cultural, social, ideological and economic standardized phenomenon by means of the practice of gestures and funereal rites. Therefore to reach this aim, our work is based on the investigation of interpretation of:
The human remains and the treatment of the body. The offerings, the symbolic objects and the funeral gestures. The memory of the deceased, the epigrafy, painting, sculpture, the exterior image of the tomb. The symbolism, the religion, superstition. The virtual reconstruction of what really happened after the death and how the deceased lived and died.

2. BACKGROUND TO PROJECT. Our Project, therefore, through a complex synthesis of the data obtained from geophysical survey, studies of the evidence and of old excavations, and new stratigraphic investigation, aims to threw light on the historical and cultural development of the life a and death of the people from a roman city as Pompeii. The GPR survey found many interesting anomalies in the area of the Tomb of Obellius. This fact led us to conduct a methodological cleaning of the interior of Obellius’ tomb, which has provided surprising results. In fact, the tomb was excavated and cleaned up from soil and, moreover, especially from the archaeological material; instead, in a small mound artificially built up into a corner of the tomb, many fragments of burned human bones perhaps attributable to Obellius and decorated bones presenting similarly evident traces of burning belonging to the funeral bed on which was placed the body on the pyre were found. In addition, it was possible to recover several remains of unburned animal bones and few tiny fragments of pottery and a bronze coin identified as an AS issued by Augustus. In front of the gate there is an anonymous schola tomb, on which a podium with an altar decorated with cista mistica was built. The GPR found several series of specific small, rounded, and aligned anomalies located about one meter below the current level at the center of the triangular wedge formed by the walls that closed the tomb. They may be interpreted as funerary urns. In fact, their shape, their alignment, and their measures can represent a series of ollae, the vases usually used in imperial age for the deposition of the funerary ashes. Some humble graves marked by simple inscriptions on the city wall, a type of burial attested in Pompeii only in the necropolis outside Porta Nola. These tombs, as Senatore (1998) says, are specially interesting because they are burial placed out of the wall, in public area, therefore, they are the only tombs of poor people known in Pompeii, which they remain without excavating and which they deserve a systematic study. We also have start a physical anthropologic investigation on the casts of fugitives discovered in 1975 near the necropolis outside Porta Nola. In particular, in the last campaign, besides the direct examination of the bones visible through the plaster, a survey with laser scanner and X-Ray examination were conducted. Studies of physical anthropology on the individuals preserved in the casts has never been done before, even they are the most humane archaeological remains of Pompeii, and in its interior preserves the best anthropologic material to know how the inhabitants of Pompeii lived and died.
3. WE HAVE 4 AIMS FOR THE NEAR CAMPAIGN 2015:
1. To continue and to finish the excavation of Obellius Firmo's tomb, in order to recover all the materials that allow us to reconstruct the gestures and funeral rituals and especially regarding the funereal bed.
2. To excavate the triangular tomb to confirm the presence of the funeral urns
3. The excavation of tombs of poor people corresponding to the inscriptions of the wall of Porta Nola
4. To continue with the investigation of the fugitives of Porta Nola
We will give to the participants a complete dossier with the information about methods, practice and theory of archaeology of death, physical anthropology, funerary archaeology, etc. English, Spanish and Italian are the official languages of the program