After Mont Vesuve has demolished Pompeii, people returned to live among the ruins

In 79 EC, Mont Vesuve broke out in what would become one of the old most infamous tragedies in humanity. Tens of centuries later, archaeologists impatiently sunk the ashes and the Ponce to rediscover the buried Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculanum in all their preserved glory. In their eagerness, however, they may have missed an important layer in history.

While working in Insula Meridionalis – the southern district of the old urban center of Pompeii – archaeologists discovered evidence confirming the hypothesis that, after 79, people returned to live among the ruins of Pompeii for hundreds of years. The team’s conclusions, which they describe in a study published this week in the Pompeii E-Journal newspaper, have highlighted events that have long lived in the shadow of a better story.

“The era episode in the destruction of the city in 79 AD monopolized memory,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director general of the Pompeii archaeological park and co-author of the study, in a press release from the park. “In the enthusiasm of reaching the 1979 levels, with wonderfully preserved frescoes and still inactive furniture, the weak traces of the reoccupation of the site have been literally deleted and often swept away without any documentation.”

All the survivors of this terrible day could not have means to start again. According to the researchers, this could explain why some can be returned to the destroyed city, the upper levels of which were still visible above ash. Soon, the vegetation would also have risen. Former return residents may also have been joined by other people “with nothing to lose”, according to the press release. After all, there was riches to find among the ashes and the bodies of the victims.

As such, life returned to Pompeii. People lived among the ruins of the upper floors of the buildings, using the old floors on the floor as cellars and caves to install chimneys, ovens and mills. Archaeological evidence suggests that the new community was probably a precarious colony without the usual Roman infrastructure and Roman services. However, the colony lasted until the 5th century. Another devastating volcanic eruption may have played a role in the final abandonment of the city.

“Thanks to the new excavations, the image is now clearer: Pompeii re-emerge post-79”, explains Zuchtriegel. “Instead of a city, (it is) a precarious and gray agglomeration, a sort of camp, a favela among the still recognizable ruins of the Pompeii of yesteryear.”

Emperor Tito had in fact loaded two ex-advisers from the promotion of the revival of Pompeii and Herculanum. Needless to say, the mission was a failure.

“In these cases, we, archaeologists, we feel like psychologists of memory buried in the earth: we bring out the parts withdrawn from history,” concluded Zuichtriegel. “This phenomenon should lead us to a broader reflection on the archaeological unconscious, on all that is deleted or erased or remains hidden, in the shadow of other apparently more important things.”