You know that feeling when there is a wall in your way and there is no way to ignore it?
A wall that stops you from doing something?
We have such a wall. Like a real wall. A real dry stone wall.
You see we have a roman fort that was built it the wilds of what is now the border between Northumberland and Cumbria. The fort was built around 122 AD. It is unique. No other roman fort was ever constructed like this, which is highly unusual given the roman love of standardisation. So from an archaeological point of view, Epiacum is a highly prized and valued site.
Then later in history a series of enclosure acts from 1845 onwards created rights to own land if that land was enclosed in some way. In the case of much of this area the answer was to build dry stone walls to claim rights to land to be farmed. As a result a lot of dry stone walls were constructed over a very short period of time. One such wall just happened to go right across the middle of Epiacum roman fort.
The first problem is that when people visit the site these days they can’t see the fort in it’s entirety as the wall gets in the way.
The second issue is that people have to walk around the wall and climb back onto the fort to see the other half of it and this is damaging the impressive ramparts that have, until now) stood the test of time. However, some people don’t walk around and clamber over the wall! Apart from the very present danger of injury doing this it damages both the wall and the site as the stones fall.
The site is so important that it is a scheduled site and therefore protected by law. But we have permission the remove most of the wall.
There are a couple of problems with this:
Firstly some of the stones in the wall are actually from the fort and we need the help of expert archaeologists to help identify these stones to both preserve them and learn what we can about the construction of this unique building.
Secondly each meter of the wall weighs a ton…. and we can’t use heavy lifting gear as the sort of vehicles needed for the job would damage the fort. So the job has to be done by hand. Stone by stone.
This all costs. We need equipment, volunteers and we need to feed and house the volunteers whilst this work is done.
[Unfortunately due to comms and other issues, Our Man was unable to post his reports on the actual day in question for the latter part of his trip. His reports are offered here, retrospectively, for the sake of completion, the historical record and those who can’t sleep at night.]
Pompeii:Â Tuesday 2nd July
As I may have mentioned, 0600 hours is not a time that I’m particularly familiar with.
The alarm clock goes off at 0600 and within moments I remember why I try and avoid this time of day. Still, there’s a job to be done.
As I a grab what I know will be one of three showers today – it’s the heat, the damn heat – I remember that Agent C finally made it late last night. Clearly an Agent that likes to do things the hard way, she declined the option of a taxi down from Naples and instead went native and took the bus and the train. I remembered to get on the comms and warn her:
“Pompeii’s tricksy. There’s two stations. Avoid the Scavi one!”
She clearly understood the message as there she was at 2215 at the right station. A quick nod of introduction and then I led her to the safe house and briefed her on the situation. There was just time for a pizza – there’s always time for pizza here – before turning in.
By 0645 I’m rushing breakfast and throwing boiled eggs in to my bag again.
Then the comms crackles into life and I have a message from Agent C. She’s been struck down by a travel bug and will meet us on site later.
I break the news to Agent Chester when I meet her at the corner of San Guiseppe and Via Sacra. Our first days seem cursed we muse.
At 0730 hours we’re in Reg.VII Ins. XIV – Civic IX if you want the exact co-ords. Pompeii is divided in to nine large regions (regio). Each region is sub-divided in to Insulae. These are areas bounded by roads and streets. If you’re from the Bronx, a ‘block’. Finally, each building in a particular Insula is given a number. Some of the Insulae, likes ours, have many buildings. Others just contain one enormous town house belonging to a city big-wig.
I hadn’t realised that the Italian’s have such a strong work ethic. No cups of tea and chat before starting on this site! Grande E gives the orders and the buckets and shovels with stupidly long handles are handed out.
It’s a job with a time limit. We have 90 minutes before the public arrive. And the goal? To move as much backfill from Civic IX to Civic III. I remark that we’re moving one bit of Pompeii to another bit of Pompeii but no one’s amused.
All this dirt here…
A lot of volcanic dust
and here…
The civic on the left… tool shed on right (not Roman).
has to go here.
Glamourous work but someone has to do it
An attempt to sort a human chain fails hopelessly so instead we grab two buckets each, wait for them to be filled and then take them to be tipped… again and again and again.
There is dust everywhere that sticks to your suncream smothered face and arms and we’re all in long trousers and steelies in the heat… the damn heat. At 0900 on the dot, the call comes to halt and clear up.
Agent’s Chester’s team are split up and sent to their jobs. They’re on this mission for four weeks. There’s Wall Drawing, Pottery, Frescos and Digging. I’m sent to accompany Agent Chester on digging.
“So for the next six hours you need to draw every stone in this wall”
The Civic I’m in is about the size of two Tesco parking bays and in one corner, a room about the size of a hotel ensuite that only has a shower. Timothy and Daniel are in charge of this excavation – apparently it’s a shop or workshop. Daniel gives us the brief:
“The square section to the right is the original AD79 floor surface. Please don’t stand on it. All these coloured pins mark points or objects of interest. Like that pile of nails over there. The bits of cardboard box are where you can stand – we do move them. We need to make a start on that little alcove but first it needs the C19th backfill removing – that’s your job whilst we finish recording yesterday’s work – as you know, yesterday’s mission was terminated because of the heat – the damn heat!”
AD79 floor on right (the little bit), alcove left, unsafe wall in middle. Area not to tread on to front.
We get set up. Ophelia from Agent Chester’s team volunteers to grab the shovel with the stupidly long handle and start removing the C19th century in to a bucket. She passes this over the wall to Agent Chester. Agent Chester passes it over the wall to me, to empty in to neat pile on a tarp that we’re creating in the next Civic. The dirt moving at the start of the day makes more sense now.
The system’s good and we crack on whilst Daniel and Timothy bag, and record everything from yesterday whilst fending off the public. People call this the zoo. We’re caged in as an endless stream of visitors walk by, stop and take photos of us and ask questions from the profound to the inane.
“Have you found anything interesting today?” asks an American gentleman.
“Sure. We’ve just found a gold coin!”
“Really?” says the man, very excitedly.
“No. Just kidding,” says Daniel. “Got some nails though?”
At the break at 1030 hours I ask Daniel and Timothy what the stupidest question they’ve been asked is.
“We were once asked if we were actors and not real archaeologists.”
I respect these guys. They’re trying to concentrate and understand a complex and evolving stratification that needs constant re-evaluation with every scrape of the trowel. And their concentration is always being interrupted by questions from the public and cameras shoved in their faces. Yet they meet it all with good humour, patience and professionalism.
A real archaeologist. Note hat and carboard stepping stones. He knows all about the Matrix.
Every now and then Grande E stops by. She casts her professorial eye over the work and talks with Daniel and Timothy about The Matrix. The Matrix. Sounds interesting.
Grande E tries to get levels between tourists
Soon after the break, Daniel crosses the cardboard stepping stones to have a look at the alcove we’ve been clearing. I try to peer around the partition wall to see and hold on to it for support.
The volcanic block in the wall that my hand is holding decides, after 2000 years, to separate from its partners. Suddenly I’m off balance and pitching forward toward the carefully laid out multi coloured pins of the pre AD79 surface.
Then I feel a hand on my arm as Agent Chester pulls me back to safety.
“Try not to go breaking Pompeii as well!” she says with a smile.
And I know, at the other side of the cage, someone is bound to have caught that moment on their video camera.
Daniel decides the enclosure is ready for a trowel clean.
“Who’s got the least experience of trowel work?”
All trowels (including mine) point in my direction.
“Ok, that’s sorted. Agent D – Timothy will run you through the Matrix.”
I could tell you about the Pompeii Matrix – but then I’d have to kill you.
Qualified trowel
We retreat to the interior of the Insula at 1300 for lunch and seek shade away from the public gaze. Every looks dusty and shattered. There is very little talk but I sense there is disastisfaction in some quarters.
I briefly mention “Operation Jericho” to them, but no-one seems too interested at the moment. Clearly I’ll have to scrape away at them slowly, like Daniel with his trowel.
During lunch Agent C turns up and reacquaints herself with some of the people she’s known from other missions. Agent Chester is very pleased to see her and informs us both that Grande E wants to take use ‘backstage’ for the afternoon.
‘Backstage’. Sounds interesting.
Just after 1400 and Agent C and I are accompanying Grande E through the crowds that throng in Pompeii’s ruined streets.
Grande E seems to know everything about this place. I take the opportunity to ask Grande E about the cats. There’s a rumour on the street that they’ve never found any feline remains in Pompeii because the cats sensed disaster was coming and moved out. She smiles.
“Oh we have cats. No casts of cats. But we have cat bones in the zoo lab. Maybe I can pull some strings and let you get a look at them.” So, as I thought, a rumour.
Somewhere near the Porta di Stabia, Grande E opens one of the many barred gates you see around here and we enter in to the unexcavated area of Regio I. We climb some steps roughly cut in to a bank that I realise shows the depth of excavation, to see a steel girdered building at least the size of a large Tesco-Extra and about as ugly.
Inside we meet Mike. He’s the head-honcho in this building so Grande E hands over the briefing to him. Most of the space inside is taken up with wall to ceiling shelving and it’s stacked with plastic trays, about 18″ x 24″, all carefully marked in some weird code. Each tray is packed with resealable plastic bags, all coded, and in each one, a fragment of pottery.
Mike gives the tour and explains that they’re still going through 2016. It makes me feel better about our molehill finds. He shows us some highlights – for me, the beautiful, deep black Etruscan ware; for Agent C, the shelves of amphora.
As we tour we come across the Agent Chester’s pottery group. They’re sat on the floor in a small circle between shelves.
“They’re getting a feel for the pottery,” explains Mike, as we exchange brief greetings.
By another tray he shows us a bag of maybe a hundred shallow, circular items, about 1.5″ in diameter.
“We’ve got thousands of these. We don’t know what they are. They look a bit like lids but to what? There weren’t any pots found with them.”
So this place still holds many mysteries.
We finish the tour, once more overwhelmed by Pompeii. Grande E leads us back out in to the heat and the streets and we pick our way through the visitors crowded in the Forum towards the west end Regio VII. This part of the town faces towards the sea, and there’s as a welcome breeze as Grande E opens another locked gate.
Unlike the Pottery Lab, that’s in a modern building on a part of Pompeii that has never been excavated and that lies safely buried a dozen metres below the ground, the Fresco Lab is housed carefully amongst the ruins. With the shade and sea breeze, I can see why the Fresco placement is the one most sought after by Agent C’s group – it’s not all about the Frescos.
Serena welcomes us with a broad smile. The Frescos of Pompeii and Herculaneum have to be one the archaeological treasures that the world still has. I’ve already been staggered by them as I’ve explored the city.
And wouldn’t you be?
In this special place they restore the ones that have been damaged by the elements, the passing of the years and the Allied bombs in 1943; and they take the fragments that have found over the years on floors all over the town, clean them and try to put them back together. An almost impossible jigsaw puzzle.
The colours on the restored works are alive and vivid. I’m used to the the reds, the yellows and the blacks – but the blues and the turquoise jump out and hit you like the colour of the Med on a perfect morning.
I ask Serena about the authenticity of the colours on the restored pieces. She smiles knowingly as if she’d expected the question.
“Oh very authentic. We’re using the pigments that were found in the ‘House of the Painters at Work’.”
There’s a perfect and beautiful circularity in this that deeply appeals to me as an artist. To take the very pigments those Fresco painters abandoned in AD 79 when the job – quite literally – got too hot; and use them to restore the original Frescos, that they might have even worked on, is neat. Very neat.
Serena fires up her laptop to show us and Grande E what she’s working on. She explains there’s no digital record of all the Frescos at Pompeii or the condition they’re in. She’s made it her mission to build up a digital archive and Agent Chester’s group are on the case. It’s another unexpected similarity with Epiacum that I need to report back to Big E. Here they’re checking the state of wall art… back home it’s the state of ramparts.
By the time our tour has finished the working day is over. Agent C wants to see more of this town, so as our colleagues head home to wash the dust and the heat from their bodies, we brave the tourists to check out more of the place.
Agent C carefully checks if the coast is clear in the Forum
By 1730 hours, I’m beat. I tell Agent C I need to head back to thse safe house for a shower and some rest – afterall, there’s a match tonight. She decides to stay in town – I remind her that it’s easy to get locked in.
Back at the safe house I realise how much volcanic dust I’ve picked up during the day. The shower is great, but on the terrace the heat – the damn heat – is relentless.
I make it to the inevitable ‘British Pub’ to watch the match. The bar staff are all Italian with only slightly more English than I have Italina. But I can order a drink – I can always order a drink.
Agent Chesters gang turn up and we’re all one big team watching England. You all know the result.
In June Epiacum’s heritage advisor, Yvonne Conchie travelled to Cyprus to share lessons from the Epiacum Research Framework with Gabriel Farrugia’s Archaeology students searching for the lost village of Pano Drys. She also spent time with other tutors from across the former Roman Empire, and learnt about the UN’s Intangible Cultural Heritage designation through Lefkaritika with Panayiota Demetriou, and brushed up her knowledge about natural building with adobe with Maria Pantas and her colleagues from Canterbury University.Â
Lefkaritika – embroidered lace protected by the UN as Intangible Cultural HeritageVisiting Choirokoitia neolithic World Heritage SiteArchitecture students learning how to make adobe bricks from the soil they stood on to build a new classroom build a newCyprus Gold hair tress jewelry, very similar to that found at Kirkhaugh Cairn on the hillside opposite Epiacum
All this is pouring inspiration and collaboration into the future plans for Epiacum – basing our provision around Grampus Heritage Green Village curriculum. This could engage our own volunteers (now known as the Second Nervians) and recruit new Alston Moor area trainees to develop skills and their own cultural identity through conserving and interpreting the heritage of Epiacum’s historic landscape. We will hopefully (EU funding depending…) be able to bring EU trainees here, and also send ours on four week international learning experiences. We have more in common than divides us.
A combination of the heat – the damn heat – and the small child in the next room who’s been crying all night. Probably complaining about the heat – the damn heat.
I manage to pack all the work gear and head for breakfast three quarters of an hour before they serve breakfast here. My hunch was right – breakfast is all set out, so I grab a quick croissant and juice and then throw some additonal items – a roll, ham, another croissant, boiled eggs – in a lunch box for later.
By 0715 I’m waiting outside the entrance to the Ampitheatre – the magic key got me through the gates. There’s not a soul about other than a man in a little truck emptying the bins and a stray dog. Despite the early hour, I can feel the heat building.
Its 0730 and there’s still no sign of Agent Chester and her accomplices. The man with the little truck has headed for new bins and the dog has wandered off. There’s just me and Pompeii.
By 0738 I’m beginning to worry. I send a comms to Agent Chester confirming the meeting place at time, but when there’s no reply by 0755 I decide to break radio silence and call her. The phone just rings out in to a vast void.
Something’s gone wrong. Maybe I misheard her on Saturday. Maybe she said the main theatre. Damn these Romans and their love of dramatics!
I decide to check out the theory so move trough the deserted streets heading for the theatre quarter. Pompeii is silent, whispering and enigmatic. The theatre quarter is as empty as it’s been for most of the past 2000 years.
Theatre quarter
In the triangular forum I spot a man with a sweeping brush and ask if he’s seen a group of about ten England people led by and Italian agent. He shakes his head and looks sadly at me as if such things are possible at this time in the morning.
Perhaps they’re already in the target area? I get my bearings and head back to Regio VII Insula XIV. It’s as deserted as the rest of the town.
This is getting serious. I need to regroup and rethink so I head back to the Ampitheatre. No sign of anyone so I walked down the entrance slope and into the bright sunshine of the arena. Making my way to spot where I think Nick Mason had his drum kit in the Floyd’s classic “Live at Pompeii” gig, I sit down to think.
I try Agent Chester again. No joy. I make a decision. I haven’t had a coffee. That needs sorting first.
At the main entrance I hit a snag. They’ve locked the gates until they open for the public at 0900. Somehow I’ve got locked in at Pompeii! I kill the time by studing the famous casts of the people who died here that they keep locked in some sort of curving, tubular greenhouse. It must be hot in there. I can’t help feeling that there’s something deeply incongruous having these remains displayed in bright, life affirming sunshine.
0900 arrives – as I find it usually does – and I make my way back to the safe house though taking a long detour to get more supplies. It’ll save time later.
My favourite coffee bar is shut, though the stray dog is still lying outside it. Like me, he didn’t know it is closed on Mondays.
I get a coffee at the safe house and lie back on the bed to chew things over and ponder my next move. Then I fall asleep.
Our Man ponders
I awake with a start, to just the beating of my heart, at noon. I decide there’s nothing to be done but to open the envelope with the emergency contact number. I dial and an Italian voice crackles over the phone. I give the codeword and suddenly I’m speaking to Agent Chester:
“Where were you this morning? We waited until 0730?”
“I was outside the entrance to the Ampitheatre at 0715 as agreed.”
“No you weren’t. We were at the entrance from 0705 aand the last agent came in at 0730.”
“I assure you I was.”
There is an awkward silence and then she continues:
“Never mind. You know your way to Regio VII, Insula XIV? Meet us there as soon as you can.”
I move fast. It’s five minutes to the ruins and the magic key does its trick. Yesterday’s recce pays dividends now as I pick a route through the quietest streets, avoiding the tourists: down the Via Di Castricio, turn right up the Vicolo Di Paquius Proculus, left on to the Vicolo Del Menandro, right on to the Via Stabina and then a final left on to the main drag, the Via Dell’Abbondanz and Regio VII.
I reach Insula XIV. The target area is empty.
No one home“
Then, I catch a glimpse of a figure passing across a doorway in one of the interior rooms of the house. I take my chance and slip around the barrier and weave around the maze of what was once a shop.
There, sitting with their backs against the wall, hugging the scant shade are Agent Chester’s accomplices. A moment later Agent Chester herself arrives.
“We’re on lunch. Come say hello to the boss.”
I follow in to one of the back rooms that still has an intact roof and so is mercifully cool. There, sitting on a stool with her wrist in a support bandage and a bandana over her head sits the boss.
“This is the agent from Epiacum,” then she turns to me, “This is the boss – the Big E”.
Oh man, two Big E’s. This is going to get confusing.
“So what happened?” she asks smiling.
Agent Chester and I run through our differing version of events… and all becomes clear, so clear that we can’t help laughing.
When Agent C had said meet at the Ampitheatre entrace, she’d meant for us all to enter by the staff entrance that leads to the east entrance of the Ampitheatre. One of her current accomplices was hear last year and knew that, so that’s where they headed.
I didn’t know about the staff entrance. So I’d headed through the main gate and ended up at the western entrance of the Ampitheatre.
We were waiting to meet each other at opposite sides of the Ampitheatre… and it’s a damn big Ampitheatre.
By the time I’d called Agent Chester, they’d given my up for lost and moved on to see the pottery and fresco preservation labs and her phone was off. They hadn’t reached the reached the target area when I first passed it.
Oh how we laughed.
“And now,” said Grande E (as I think I should call her), “You’re just in time to go home. We’re aborting today’s mission.”
I was a littl shocked but apparently the others had been fried by over briefing and the heat – the damn heat – and so the decision had been made to let them finish early.
“Perhaps you’ll join us tomorrow?” she says smiling.
“Sure,” I say, and hand her the Epiacum Research Framework. “From Big E – with her compliments.”
Back at the safe house there’s a comms message from Agent C. She’s landing tonight and needs a briefing.
I notice that the keepers of this place have replaced my broken chair. I sit down to file my report for Big E and hear the unmistakeable crack of breaking plastic.
The plan to get to the ruins before they opened to the public was banjaxed by the local vino rosso.
Aptly named Vesuvio, it wiped me out just as effectively as the volcano did to the Roman town. Guess I must have needed the sleep.
By nine thirty I’m sitting outside what I can see will become my favourite coffee bar with what passes as a large Americano in these parts, a pretty damn good croissant with apricot jam, and a stray dog. The mission is to locate the target and familiarise myself with the wider area and spot potential problems.
It’s only five minutes from the cafe to the nearest entrance. I’m about a hundred yards from it when I hear a strange metallic sound from somewhere near my feet.
Latest equipment failure
Damn those cheap Argos watches! The strap’s broke and impact has thrown the back off somewhere down a Pompeian drain. Good job I packed my work watch, though doubtless that’ll melt in this relentless heat. It would be nice to have a day when something doesn’t break.
I get to the gates and the whole place is a mass of people. Then I realise why it’s so busy – entry is free on the 1st Sunday of each month, and the masses are taking advantage. I head up between the Ampitheatre on my right and the Palaestra on my left, heading north for the Via dell’Abbondanza.
Inside the PalaestraThe ampitheatre
The road’s named after the Goddess of Abundance and it’s abduntantly full of people. We’re crawling forward like migrants waiting to be registered at a refugeee camp, stopping every few seconds whilst another family or loving couple hold the procession up with the obligatory souvenir photograph.
Via dell’Abbondanza
It’s a surprsingly long way, and the slow procession, the heat and the uneven 2000 year old road surface make it seem even longer. Maybe that explains why we start before the public can visit – otherwise we wouldn’t get to the work site until lunch time.
Suddenly, there on the right, I see the tell tale barriers closing off an area. Well hello, Regio VII, Insula XIV.
The site in question!
I need time to contemplate this, so I head in to one of the many little shops that flank the street. None of the tourists seem to go in to these working class ruins, so I’ve got the place to myself to get my bearings in the shade. I dig out the map I picked up at the entrance and read the information.
Oh God, it’s a non-smoking site! I’ve really been let down by the intelligence on this one! Instinctively I reach for a cigarette to deal with the shock. Then I notice some small icons on the map – smoking areas! Ok, a new plan. I need to see how long it takes to get from here to the nearest one and whether I can get there and back in a 15 minute break.
Stepping back out on to the main drag I take a last look for today at what’s going to be my main place of work for the next few days. We’re going to feel like goldfish swimming in a bowl full of boiling water. I rejoin the slow procession and head west towards the Forum.
I’ve seen some things in my time, but it’s been a while since something literally took my breath away. You don’t see the Forum until you step in to it – and I’m sure the Romans planned it that way. It’s enormous and mind-blowing. It’s bigger than traflagar square and more inspiring – and it’s aligned with Vesuvius.
The Forum and the volcano
More Forum
I spend about fifteen minutes just grinning and letting my head spin. Then I realise, I most definitely need to sit down in the shade with a cigarette, so I head towards the Temple of Jupiter.
As a minority memeber of a dying breed, I’m used to indulging my habit in cramped bus shelters outside airports or in wind ravaged porches outside pubs. The small side street behind the Temple of Jupiter must qualify as one of the best smoking areas in the world. What’s more, I reckon I can get there and back on my break, although I might have to shout “Permesso!” very loudly and wave my trowel to get through the traffic.
Refreshed, I head for the Herculaneum gate in the far northwest of the town and the Villa of the Mysteries. From there I wander back to the Theatre and then towards the Ampitheatre.
It’s impossible to describe Pompeii in words, the experience or how I feel. It’s overwhelming. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. At one point I laugh out loud when I realise I’ve got lost in a town that hasn’t been inhabited for almost two thousand years. There are not many places on the planet where you can do that.
Mmm… now where is that?
The Via delle Tombe (the Road of Tombs)
Wow!
Four hours later and I’m back at the entrance. I’ve feel like I’ve walked miles and my head is spinning.
Back at the safe house, there’s a message from Agent Chester. We’re starting tomorrow at 0720 hours!
0720 is not a time I’m familiar with. Neither is the safe house – they don’t do breakfast until 0730. Neither is my favourite coffee house.
I’m going to try and find a bucket to stand in as I work so I can collect the bits of me that melt.
I’m just about to file my report when there’s a very large bang that makes me jump so much I nearly fall of the terrace. Someone has fired a decent sized piece of artillery. It continues sporadically for about ten minutes. I have no idea why. Perhaps it’s the Pope’s birthday.
Whatever the reason, unexpected loud bangs when you’re sitting at the foot of an active volcano should be discouraged in this agent’s opinion.
