6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Pompeii: The New Dig: House of Treasures' Review: Luxury Unearthed on PBS
Archaeology is storytelling, and Pompeii—despite being buried under 19 feet of volcanic ash in A.D. 79—has become more and more of an open book. 'Pompeii: The New Dig: House of Treasures' is an addendum of sorts to last year's three-part 'New Dig' series, an hourlong update on recent findings in the ancient Roman city and a new chapter in a detective story whose evidence is 2,000 years old.
The human impulse is to impose a narrative on what can't otherwise be explained, but the objects unearthed at Pompeii provide a virtual map to buried history. The most recent excavations, on what was a well-to-do avenue called Nola and involve a plot the size of 'two and a half Olympic swimming pools,' according to narrator Ria Lina, established the existence of a bakery, a laundry and an adjacent residence that by every indication was the home of a high-ranking Pompeiian, one who wasn't afraid to display his wealth through furnishings, décor and the maintenance of a private gymnasium. The participants in the dig, overseen by Gabriel Zuchtriegel, general director of the Pompeii Archeological Park, identified the homeowner as Aulus Rustius Verus, a Roman of wealth and prominence who even ran for public office—the equivalent of a campaign poster can be seen, carved into a stone wall.
