Escaping the Shadow of Pompeii
Elisabetta Povoledo
The New York Times, 15/11/20121
Herculaneum Has Become a Textbook Case of Successful Conservation
HERCULANEUM,
Italy — They are poignant snapshots of sudden death: huddled clusters
of skeletal remains in what were once beach-front warehouses,
immortalized for eternity when Mount Vesuvius smothered this ancient
Roman town in A.D. 79. "They died of thermal shock as they were waiting
to be saved via the sea," Domenico Camardo, an archaeologist, said
recently as he surveyed dozens of modern-day skeletal casts of long-ago
denizens. They carried with them jewelry, coins, even "20 keys, because
they were hoping to return home," Mr. Camardo added. "They didn't
understand that it was all about to end." First excavated by
archaeologists some 30 years ago, the warehouses were recently outfitted
with walkways and gates to provide access to these chilling tableaus
and will soon be open to the public on special occasions. Reviving
history for a modern audience "is one of the beautiful things we get to
do," said Mr. Camardo, the lead archaeologist with the Herculaneum
Conservation Project, a joint initiative of the Packard Humanities
Institute, of Los Altos, Calif.; the local artistic heritage authority;
and the British School at Rome. The project, an unusual public-private
venture, has effectively managed the site for more than a decade and
made it possible to complete tasks like the walkways to the skeleton
casts. Compared with its better-known Vesuvian neighbor, Pompeii, where
local officials, constrained by inadequate and mismanaged government
funds, have long struggled in their efforts to conserve and protect the
sprawling open-air site — and even to prevent the periodic and well
publicized collapse of walls — Herculaneum has become a textbook case of
successful archaeological conservation. For many years archaeologists
and conservators have undertaken what they describe as "invisible work"
here, like installing cost-effective protective roofing or reactivating
the Roman sewers under the ancient city so that buildings can once again
drain rainwater. Rather than focusing on a set of frescoes, say, or an
individual house, "we've been reasoning on broader terms," Mr. Camardo
said. "This takes more time, and is far less splashy because you're
looking at sewers and drainpipes, but in the end it's more effective."
In addition to time the work also took the deep pockets of the American
philanthropist David W. Packard, son of one of the founders of
Hewlett-Packard, who has topped up state resources by discreetly
funneling more than 20 million into the project over the past 12 years,
creating a team of specialists, nearly all Italian, to reinforce the
local heritage staff. Though he eschews publicity and declined to be
interviewed for this article, Dr. Packard has been "very personally
involved" and is constantly apprised of developments, visiting the site
regularly, said Jane Thompson, the project manager of the Herculaneum
Conservation Project. "It's not just a question of sponsorship." He sits
on the board that oversees the project and last year became an honorary
citizen of the modern city of Herculaneum. He is currently involved in
discussions about the construction of a new museum here that would house
artifacts from the site and double as a conservation center. "The
Packard people have really engaged the local community and authorities
into feeling that this is their project," said Daniel Berger, a Culture
Ministry consultant who has acted as a liaison in the Packard project.
"It's made the monument become a source of pride, and income." Maria
Paola Guidobaldi, the Culture Ministry official who is director of the
site, went as far as to say that the support of the Packard Humanities
Institute "allowed us to save the site." The Italian government
allocates some 4 million a year to Herculaneum, she said, but the
Packard funds have permitted conservators to work in a more structured
and forward-looking manner. "It's been an extraordinary experience that
we hope will continue because there is much more to be done," she said. A
spate of crumbling walls and other mishaps at Pompeii, including an
episode late this summer when a supporting beam collapsed at the
so-called Villa of Mysteries, has put its preservation problems under a
starkly unflattering spotlight. In 2011 the European Union allocated 135
million over four years toward the safeguarding of Pompeii, but experts
concur that the problems there go beyond a lack of funds and include
issues of management and bureaucratic inertia. But officials at
Herculaneum say that this site was not significantly better off when the
Packard team arrived in 2001. (Herculaneum was described at a European
conference in Rome in February 2002 as the worst case in the world of an
archaeological site in extreme decay with no civil war to justify it.)
"It was a total disaster but with very complex reasons that took time to
understand," said Sarah Court, a spokeswoman for the Herculaneum
Conservation Project, recalling that about two-thirds of the ancient
city was closed to the public, and degradation — exploding mosaics,
collapsing roofs, flaking frescoes — was widespread. More integrated
management practices and the opening up of the inflexible, top-down
approach that is typical of Italian bureaucracy has helped to put
Herculaneum on a more successful path. New forms of support have also
been cultivated, and collaborations have been undertaken with other
nongovernment partners, both Italian and international, in support of
the public heritage authority. Unesco is working with the Vesuvian sites
and studying how Herculaneum could be a model for other World Heritage
Sites, particularly in Mediterranean and Arab countries. "Packard is the
healthy version of philanthropy that allows us to learn lessons that
can hopefully be of use beyond Herculaneum," Ms. Court said. For
visitors the experience made possible by Herculaneum's painstaking
conservation can be visceral. "Pompeii is spectacular; Herculaneum more
real," said Judy Lawrence of England, who visited both sites this
summer. "This place makes you cry”.
