We have the pleasure to present to you some thoughts on what CLIMATE CHANGE could mean for the TRADING and CONSERVATION of LUXURY ARTS, LUXURY ANTIQUES, as well as AUCTIONS and PRIVATE SALES in the FINE ARTS, among others.
And for that we will do it in several parts, this is the second one.
.II.
POMPEII, HERCULANEUM and a few other small towns, were completely destroyed by the Vesuvius stratovolcano, just located near Naples in southern Italy in 79 AD ( Anno Domini ).
( confer here : ALEXANDRIA IS BURNING AGAIN n°1 )
This so violent eruption when it stopped, let a very heavy silence hover, over those small towns, completely buried and enclosed in a dense, airtight gangue and under a mountain of volcanic ash, which concealed them from human eyes for nearly fifteen centuries.
The construction of the Sarno canal in 1592 was the first known contact with those small buried towns, which did not give rise to methodical archaeological excavations, according to informations from that time until today.
The year 1750 paved the way for methodical and serious archaeological exploration and excavation, which would not stop developing since today, still discoveries are made on the sites of those small towns.
The archaeological excavations led to discoveries leading, surprises after surprises, to major scientific questions concerning the exceptional conservation of frescoes, statues and even papyrus, paradoxically protected by the extraordinarily thick gangue that had encased HERCULANEUM, POMPEII and some other small towns nearby, at the end of the huge explosion of the stratovolcano Vesuvius.
Once the hour of wonder was over, to discover all the artistic beauties admirably preserved, the scientific questioning led to a whole dense work and in perpetual development, of what had allowed to preserve at that moment-there, such artistic beauties, carried away in a rare and unprecedented gust of violent pyroclastic flows from the stratovolcano Vesuvius.
We considered and still consider it an exceptional opportunity to have such beautiful works of art today, when we know the difficulties those works of art went through before they reached us.
The most impressive of many discoveries was in the " Villa of the Papyri " in HERCULANEUM.
This exceptional villa was discovered with a whole library, which is still today a unique example of a complete library that we received from the antique period.
This library was discovered with 1838 papyrus completely charred by the pyroclastic flows of the stratovolcano Vesuvius. But as they were completely encased in a strong and thick gangue, without any oxygen, the papyrus did not burn because the very hot pyroclastic flows had no oxygen to burn.
Nowadays, a large number of scientists works on those papyrus to try to translate what is in their text, by trying to unwrap them without damage.
It is not simple, because if we are lucky enough to have them today, the conservation level is very fragile due to the fact that the pyroclastic flows caused a complete aggregation of all the material of all the papyrus.
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© ISABELLE CLAUDINE FRANCOISE LARGENTON