Without computers Pompeii people wrote on the exteriors of houses up and down the street, in bath houses and in kitchens. Everything was fair game.
Rebecca Benefiel, assistant professor of classics at Washington and Lee University, has spent the last three years studying the more than 11,000 messages in Pompeii. “It’s the only site where we have an entire city’s worth of these messages,” she said. The messages present a combination of writing and drawings, with writing being the more common form of expression. Benefiel said she sees the graffiti as the voice of the people and a lens through which to view ancient society. (thaindian news . . .) Just like modern emails and ecards.
What They Wrote
For example, while history has not treated the Emperor Nero kindly, he was in fact very popular with the locals in Pompeii. Benefiel came across numerous graffiti saying “Neroni Feliciter,” which roughly translates into “Long Live Nero.” Wow, I guess in Pompeii they had Fox News.
What is most interesting she discovered a poetry competition with eight messages. “Someone starts off quoting a verse of poetry, and then someone else adds to it and so forth. It’s very interactive and you can see that there are different styles of handwriting.” Just like office refrigerator magnets.
What a Find
Two-thirds of Pompeii has been uncovered and is now deteriorating from exposure to strong sunlight, rain, creeping vegetation and tourists. Benefiel said that the authorities have been putting a great effort into preserving the city in the last few years. “But you’re probably not going to see any brand-new excavations any time soon, for that reason,” she said.
Pompeii is unique in its preservation of life as it was in 79 A.D., when Mount Vesuvius erupted. It buried the city with a light pumice stone called lapilli that gradually covered the houses to about the second story during a period of 36 hours. “You can easily shovel the lapilli into a bucket,” said Benefiel. “In a matter of days you’ve got a whole building cleared.” Which leaves the first stories of buildings are very well preserved, and that is where Benefiel carries out some of her research.
These ancient houses all faced inward with an internal court containing a pool and gardens. That left a blank façade facing the street, explained Benefiel, and plenty of space for writing graffiti on what was seen as a public space. In fact all façades of buildings could be written on in every street.
“These walls were huge message boards,” said Benefiel. “What’s really fun is how interactive the graffiti was. It’s fascinating because it shows how engaged the people were in the writing process. They were reading the messages around them and writing responses.“ Kind of like Twitter and online Forums without the computer.
Final Thoughts
It seems humans always wanted to get in their opinion, being creative, publicly and permanently. One of the great things about computers it takes the same old and make it easier to disseminate any information. Of course, I wonder how many people could write messages in Pompeii anonymously? I wonder if accountability is lost with more and more people are willing to write anything without actually being accountable.
You can never remove a tweet, just like you can’t un-carve a poetry in stone. 10,000 years from now when a lonely geek archives all our tweets, how crazy will we sound? Heck already on twitter likaog wrote “Long live Obama!! He’s the man!!! :O)” and margaretfrank “i love bush“. Wonder if the world will know likaog meant Obama 44th president or margaretfrank meant the band Bush?