Casts of human victims of the 79 AD volcanic eruption in Pompeii from the Collection of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Adulto (Uomo) c.d. seduto (Adult man sitting), 2000
Resin
60 x 50 x 90 cm

Adulto, maschio (Adult man), 2000
Resin
140 x 80 x 35 cm

Courtesy Italian Ministry of Culture/Archeological Park of Pompeii

The Archaeological Park of Pompeii has provided two of the most touching casts of human victims of the eruption of the Vesuvius from its collection for the exhibition The Presence of Absence.

In 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted in the Gulf of Naples. Ash, pumice and lapilli (small lava stones) rained down on houses, people and other living creatures in the city of Pompeii for days. The earth had already trembled 17 years earlier and shaken the region, an omen of the impending catastrophe. Noble families sold their sumptuous but damaged houses to newly rich merchant families and moved away. Nobody suspected the approaching deadly danger. But the force of the volcanic eruption spared no one, neither the rich nor the slaves. The unexpected catastrophe wiped out local life with a destructive force comparable to that of the volcano eruption in Laetoli, in present-day Tanzania, 3.5 million years ago or the earthquake on Sicily in 1968. A zero hour.

What had once been a vibrant trading city of ancient Roman times froze in time. A ten-metre thick layer of ash and volcanic rock covered the city like a burial shroud. Nature reclaimed the landscape. Over time, a grey desert transformed into fertile land and pastures. People knew of the events from the letters of Pliny the Younger, an eyewitness. Yet, for over a millennium, Pompeii faded into oblivion. It was only in the 18th century, during a period of renewed archaeological interest, that Pompeii was rediscovered.

During excavations in 1863, Giuseppe Fiorelli, the head of Pompeii’s city administration, discovered mysterious voids in the sediment. These voids contained human bones. The archaeologist’s intuition led him to try a technique known from sculpture and metal casting. He poured liquid plaster into the underground cavities. The plaster took on the form of human bodies. Fiorelli made 100 casts of a total of 650 hollow spaces—the traces of ancient victims of the catastrophe, whose bodies had almost completely vaporised in the heat. The forms were uncovered and can still be seen today in the collection of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

 

“It is impossible to look upon these three deformed figures and not be inwardly moved… They have been dead for eighteen centuries, but they are human beings whom you can see in the agony of their death. This is no art, no imitation, but their bones, the remains of their flesh and their clothes mixed with plaster: it is the pain of death that has regained body and form… Until now, temples, houses and other objects have been discovered that spark the curiosity of scholars, artists and archaeologists; but now you, my Fiorelli, have discovered human suffering, and everyone who is human can feel it”.

From: Luigi Settembrini, Lettera ai pompeiani (Letter to the Pompeians), 1863

“The purpose of reconstructing this world is to extend and perhaps even relativise our own world; another world is possible—change is possible. Things have changed, sometimes radically, and they will continue to do so in the future. […] What was and what will be is beyond anyone’s control, but the blend of remembering and forgetting with which we view our history is in our hands”.

From: Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Vom Zauber des Untergangs. Was Pompeji über uns erzählt (On the Magic of Destruction: What Pompeii Tells Us About Ourselves), 2023