Pompeii Revisited

After giving a talk at a conference on valuing cultural heritage on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples, I had the opportunity to step back in time and again experience ancient Pompeii.

Colleague Ann Pulver and I met Assistant Superintendent Antonio D'Ambrosio and we visited the Casa delle Nozze d'Argento, or House of the Silver Wedding Anniversary, the site of WMF's conservation planning project from 1998 to 2001. WMF and colleagues conducted an analysis of what it would take to conserve and present a whole ancient city block (Insula VII) with the house as its centerpiece.

WMF's support of the project produced a comprehensive report, and the culminating event was an international conference in 2002 that brought together archaeologists, conservators, historians, and architects who all worked at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but had never had the chance to spend several days together just talking about their work. Conservation in the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Review of Best Practices provides an overview of all the materials presented at the conference.

I was happy to give my new book, Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation, to the Library of the site Superintendent's office in gratitude for my career in architectural conservation having started three decades ago as a draftsman at Pompeii's House of Sallust.