archaeology.org 29by the eruption by pouring plaster
into the hollows left in the volcanic
debris by decayed remains. Excava-
tions have continued ever since,
halted only by World War II—
when Pompeii was bombed—and
a powerful earthquake in 1980.
Despite this nearly constant
collecting, surveying, mapping,
and digging, as of 2018 , about a
third of Pompeii still had never
been excavated. At this point,
in Regio V, in the northern part
of the city, the layers of lapilli,
ash, and volcanic mud started to
collapse under their own weight,
imperiling excavated properties
and adjacent streets. To address
this, a new excavation project was
begun in a previously unexplored
part of Pompeii. “The conven-
tional idea when these excava-
tions started was that they would solve issues of damage
control and conservation,” says archaeologist Steven Ellis
of the University of Cincinnati. There was an expecta-
tion, he adds, that all the typical Pompeian things—wall
paintings, shops, mosaics—would be found. “What
they’re finding is, in some ways, much more
interesting,” Ellis says. “It’s enabling us
to see not just the state of the city in
a.d. 79 , but also what it was like when it first became an
archaeological site 200 years ago. It’s a chance to see the
Pompeii that the first excavators saw. We’ve never had
that before.” This, he explains, is allowing archaeologists
to ask questions about Pompeii that haven’t been possible
for a very long time. “It’s more than just looking at how
the colors of a painting have faded,” he says. “It’s ‘What
were these paintings actually like when they were buried?
Were amphoras really stacked against the walls the way we
often see them now? Is this how the city really looked, or
is what we see now a product of the past two centuries?’
If we see the site as an archaeological laboratory, Regio
V is an entirely new kind of lab.”
But Regio V is not the only part of Pompeii that
archaeologists are investigating. At locations across
the city, in its temples, public baths, restaurants, gar-
dens, houses, villas, and cemeteries, they are looking
for elusive evidence of Pompeii’s earliest settlements,
revising previously held theories about the age of the
site, reexamining properties that were excavated cen-
turies ago, and even searching for evidence of what may
have become of those who survived the eruption.Domenico Fontana during construction of
an underground water tunnel. No further
work took place at the site for almost 150
years, when excavations began in earnest at the direc-
tion of Charles of Bourbon, the king of Naples. In 1763 ,
an inscription was found confirming that the site, until
then known only as La Cività, or “The City,” was in fact
Roman Pompeii.F
ormorethaNtwo and a half centuries, with few
interruptions, archaeologists have worked in Pom-
peii. Early on, these excavations were less scientific
explorations than treasure-hunting expeditions aimed at
collecting the paintings, sculptures, mosaics, jewelry, and
silver that now fill many of the world’s museums. After
decades of largely disorganized, poorly documented
projects, Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fio-
relli became director of excavations at Pompeii in
1860. He meticulously documented and mapped the
site, dividing it into the nine regions (Regio I–IX)
that are still in use. Fiorelli also developed the tech-
nique of creating casts of people and animals trappedA decorated handle from a bronze vessel found in the
new excavations in Regio VA plaster cast of a horse killed during the eruption is the
newest such cast to be made in Pompeii. The legs of another
horse are also visible, suggesting the building in which they
were found was a stable. o
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