Pompeii: Art, Industry and Infrastructure - Softcover

9781842179840: Pompeii: Art, Industry and Infrastructure

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842179845 ISBN 13: 9781842179840

Publisher: Oxbow Books, 2011

Even after more than 250 years since its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academic discourse and the popular imagination. This volume brings together a collection of ten papers that advance, challenge and revise the present conceptions of the city's art, industry and infrastructure. The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture. The famous cupid's frieze from the house of the Vettii is given a novel and intelligent reinterpretation. The place of industry at Pompeii, in both the physical and economic landscapes has long been overlooked. The chapters on building practice in inhabited houses, on the presence of fulling workshops in atrium houses, and on the urban pottery industry serve as successful contributions to a more complete understanding of the life of the ancient city. Finally, this volume breaks new ground in the consideration of the urban infrastructure of Pompeii, a topic that has won serious attention only in the last decades, but one that is playing an increasingly central role in Pompeian studies. The final three chapters offer a reassessment of the Pompeian street network, a scientific analysis of the amount of lead in Pompeian drinking water, and a thorough analysis of the water infrastructure around the forum that supported its architectural transformation in the last decades before the eruption of mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Table of Contents

Introduction (Eric Poehler, Miko Flohr and Kevin Cole)

Art
Beyond Painting in Pompeii’s Houses: Wall Ornaments and their Patrons (Jessica Powers)
The Sculpture of the Casa di Octavius Quartio at Pompeii (Francesca Tronchin)
Porticus and Cryptoporticus in Luxury Villa Architecture (Mantha Zarmakoupi)
Playful Workers. The Cupid Frieze in the Casa dei Vettii (Francesco de Angelis)

Industry
Disruption or Continuity? The Spatio-Visual Evidence of Post Earthquake Pompeii (Michael Anderson)
Reconsidering the atrium House: Domestic fullonicae at Pompeii (Miko Flohr)
Pottery Production in Pompeii: an Overview (Myles McCallum)

Infrastructure
What was a via? An Integrated Archaeological and Textual Approach (Alan Kaiser)
Lead Contamination in the Drinking Water of Pompeii (Duncan Keenan-Jones)
Practical Matters: Infrastructure and the Planning for the Post-Earthquake Forum at Pompeii (Eric Poehler)

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Review:

"This book will be of most interest to specialists now working on Pompeii or its region. [...]Several of the individual contributions...are intelligent and innovative responses to important questions..." (S.E. Craver Journal of Roman Archaeology, 25 (2012))

The short chapters of the volume give a wonderful glimpse into what is being done in Pompeii at the moment. The variety of topics is astounding and the new insights into the various aspects of the daily life in Pompeii and its surroundings are fascinating. (Eava-Maria Viitanen Arctos, 46)

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