Pompeii

Pompeii

an ancient city in Italy, southeast of Naples: buried by an eruption of Vesuvius (79 ad); excavation of the site, which is extremely well preserved, began in 1748

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Pompeii

(1592)

An ancient city southeast of Naples that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The ruins of Pompeii were first discovered in 1592. Excavations of the ruins did not begin until 1709.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Pompeii

Roman city buried by eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (79). [Rom. Hist.: NCE, 2187]

See: Disaster

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pompeii

 

(until 1928, Valle di Pompei), a city in southern Italy, in the region of Campania, Naples Province. Pompeii is situated along the Gulf of Naples, at the base of Mount Vesuvius, 22 km southeast of the city of Naples. Population, 22,700 (1968). Most of Pompeii’s work force is engaged in the tourist industry. The city has a paper mill, other small industrial enterprises, and a geophysical observatory.

Nearby the modern city of Pompeii are the ruins of the ancient Roman city, which was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in August A.D. 79. Excavations of the ancient city, which was covered by pumice stones and ashes, have been conducted since the mid-18th century. In the 1940’s and 1950’s the director of the excavations was the Italian archaeologist A. Maiuri. A large part of the city, a necropolis at the city gates, and suburban villas have been discovered.

Remains from the second century B.C. include the ruins of a forum (with a colonnade known as the Basilica) and the Temple of Apollo. The Temple of Jupiter, the building of priestess Eumachia (cloth market), the macellum (meat market), and the baths belong to the first century B.C. Also preserved are the remains of a triangular forum with a Doric temple (sixth century B.C.), a theater (third to first centuries B.C.), an odeum (first century B.C.), and an amphitheater (first century B.C.). There are numerous dwellings (atrium, atrium-peristyle, and terrace-atrium types), which are decorated with sculpture, mosaics, and frescoes.

Pompeian wall decoration is divided into four styles. The first style, called incrustation, dates from the second through the early first century B.C. The incrustation style imitates marble facing. The second, or architec tural, style dates roughly from 80 to 30 B.C. It creates the illusion of an architectural composition and deals with such subject matter as landscapes and mythology. The third, or ornate, style belongs to the first half of the first century A.D. Its symmetrical, ornamental compositions depict mythological scenes and landscapes. The fourth Pompeian wall style, called the intricate, dates from about A.D. 63 through the early second century. Fantastic archit ectural constructions predominate in this style.

Since Pompeii was engulfed suddenly, the contents of dwellings, shops, restaurants, and public buildings remained in situ. Consequently, the city is an important source of information on the economy, life, culture, and art of the Roman Empire in the first century A.D.

REFERENCES

Pompeianskie rospisi(album). Leningrad-Moscow, 1937.
Sergeenko, M. E. Pompei. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946.
Carrington, R. C. Pompeii Oxford, 1936.
Maiuri, A. Pompei. Rome, 1928.
Maiuri, A. Pompei. Rome, 1937. (Guide.)
Beyen, H. G. Die pompejanische Wanddekoration, vols. 1–2. The Hague, 1938–60.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.