POMPEII: THE NEW DIG, BBC2 REVIEW — POIGNANT REMAINS, PICKAXES AND 2,000-YEAR-OLD PIZZA

It took about 24 seconds for the sound of Mount Vesuvius erupting to reach the bakery off Pompeii’s Via di Nola, roughly 19 hours for ashfall and volcanic debris to bury the building, and almost 2,000 years for the secrets entombed within to be rediscovered.

Pompeii: The New Dig, an absorbing three-part BBC series, charts the most significant new excavation at the site for a generation. Following a team of archeologists, forensic anthropologists, archaeobotanists and historians, it gives us privileged access to those stirring, exhilarating moments when relics and artworks are unearthed in a hitherto untouched city block. Their finds range from the exquisite to the everyday, the unexpected to the shocking. Each is a vital clue in the mystery of who lived here and how they died.

While the magnificent frescoes and ornaments — preserved under the delicately removed dust of millennia — have already made headlines, the archeologists themselves are touchingly just as excited by the little miscellaneous pieces that help paint a broader picture of pre-cataclysmic Pompeii. The discovery of tool boxes and material inventories at the property, for instance, tells us that there were ongoing repair projects at the time of the eruption, likely due to the damage caused by an ominous earlier earthquake. Elsewhere, a still life depicts the kind of things wealthy locals would dine on — including, improbably, a pizza.

Such revelations not only open a door to the past, but also build a bridge to the present. In one wonderful scene, an excavator uses his pickaxe to uncover an almost identical instrument. Later they find a plumbing system hardly less sophisticated than today’s domestic engineering. “It’s extraordinary how nothing has changed,” notes dig leader Gennaro Iovino in between giddy exclamations of “mamma mia” that are heard around the site as more and more is salvaged from the ruins.

It’s impossible not to share in their awe and delight (which is well complemented with expertise throughout the show). But joy is occasionally intermingled with sorrow. As the team develops a clearer sense of the story of the building, our distance from the tragedy shrinks. A room full of crushed bones brings the fear and suffering of the victims’ final hours into sharp relief, while signs of renovation works give an affecting glimpse of a future that never came to Pompeii.

★★★★☆

Episode one on iPlayer in the UK now; episode two on BBC2 on April 22 at 9pm. On PBS in the US from May 15

2024-04-16T10:52:14Z dg43tfdfdgfd