Pompeii Casts. Other plaster-casts.

Villa Regina pig

Villa Regina, Boscoreale. The information card says: The villa was a farm and vineyard. This pig was found in a room of the villa, where it must have sought refuge during the eruption.

Photographed at “A Day in Pompeii” exhibition at Melbourne Museum. September 2009.

Villa Regina, Boscoreale. Pig found in a room of the villa, where it must have sought refuge during the eruption.

Photographed at “A Day in Pompeii” exhibition at Melbourne Museum. September 2009.

Unidentified victims

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Giuseppe Fiorelli, director of the Pompeii Excavations, developed a technique to obtain casts of the corpses found within the ash layer by simply pouring plaster into the voids left by the bodies into the compacted ash deposit. This method was first applied in February 1863 when the casts of 4 bodies, then identified as a family escaping the town, were obtained.

Other significant discoveries made by means of this method were:

9 corpses in the Giardino del Criptoportico (Garden of the Cryptoporticus) (1914),

13 corpses in the Orto dei Fuggiaschi (Garden of the Fugitives) (1961),

10 corpses in the Casa del Bracciale d’Oro (House of Golden Bracelet) (from 1958 to 1970),

21 corpses outside the Porta Nola (1908-1911 and 1976-1978)

and 9 corpses in Regio I, Insula 22  (1989).

See Luongo G., Perrotta A., Scarpati C., De Carolis E., Patricelli G., Ciarallo A., 2002.

Impact of the AD 79 explosive eruption on Pompeii, II. Causes of death of the inhabitants

The appendices each give a very useful list of the corpses found giving the location, date of recovery, number of corpses and the archive references.

Appendix A

Corpses found within the lower lapilli pumice fall deposit

Appendix B

Corpses found within the upper stratified ash and pumice lapilli pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) deposits

In all there are believed to be around 86 casts.

Below are some victims that we have not managed to identify.

Unidentified victim 1, The Anonymous Man

VII.7.29 Pompeii. May 2011. Plaster cast of unidentified victim on display in the storerooms on the west side of the Forum. 

Photo courtesy of Michael Binns.

VII.7.29 Pompeii. May 2006. Plaster cast of The Anonymous Man on display in the storerooms on the west side of the Forum.

Unidentified victim 2 has now been identified as being found in 2002 at Porta Capua and is now on a separate page.

Unidentified Victim 3, man holding his hand over his mouth

Unidentified Victim 3, man holding his hand over his mouth. The exhibition card says:

This man may have been holding his hand over his mouth, trying to avoid suffocation.

Photographed at “A Day in Pompeii” exhibition at Melbourne Museum.  September 2009.

Unidentified Victim 3, man holding his hand over his mouth. View from rear.

Photographed at “A Day in Pompeii” exhibition at Melbourne Museum.  September 2009.

Cast of a ladder made in V.3.12 in 1902

V.3.12 Pompeii. Upon excavating the andron in December 1902 the following plaster casts were made.

- an internal fascia of the entrance doorway

- a bar of wood with which one reinforced the doorway when it was closed

- a ladder (shown in the photo above).

According to Sogliano, it must be recorded that the ladder was the first of its type to be cast.

Sogliano said this was due to the diligence of Della Corte.

See Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1905, p. 214 fig. 5.

Casts in I.8.17 but origin unknown

I.8.17 Pompeii. June 2010.

Room 10, doorway and south-east corner. Photo courtesy of Rick Bauer.

I.8.17 Pompeii. June 2010. Room 10, plaster casts of victims. Looking east. Photo courtesy of Rick Bauer.

I.8.17 Pompeii. December 2007. Room 10, plaster casts of two people.

I.8.17 Pompeii. December 2007. Room 10, plaster cast of head of victim.

I.8.17 Pompeii. June 2010. Room 10, plaster casts of victims. Photo courtesy of Rick Bauer.

I.8.17 Pompeii. 1968. Casa dei Quattro Stili, cubiculum NE of atrium, cast of corpse from above. 

(This photograph is not necessarily from Room 10, but we have included all the photos of the casts together).

Photo courtesy of Anne Laidlaw.

American Academy in Rome, Photographic Archive. Laidlaw collection _P_68_14_25.

I.8.17 Pompeii. 1968. Casa dei Quattro Stili, cubiculum NE of atrium, cast of corpse from above. 

(This photograph is not necessarily from Room 10, but we have included all the photos of the casts together).

Photo courtesy of Anne Laidlaw.

American Academy in Rome, Photographic Archive. Laidlaw collection _P_68_14_26. 

I.8.17 Pompeii. 1959. Room 10. Plaster cast of a victim. Photo by Stanley A. Jashemski.

The Jashemski record says that this photo was taken in I.8.17 in 1959, but this victim most probably did not come from this house.

Source: The Wilhelmina and Stanley A. Jashemski archive in the University of Maryland Library, Special Collections (See collection page) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License v.4. See Licence and use details.

J59f0326 

Cast of upper floor timbers in I.8.17

I.8.17 Pompeii. December 2007. Room 14, casts of upper floor timbers.

I.8.17 Pompeii. December 2007. Room 14, remains of ceiling and an upper floor.