10 July 1999 - April 2000


PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Roman art as a social language of status markers and claims is a given for the study of the use of imported marble, but actual instances like those at Pompeii have been little studied. My project starts with the hypothesis that some house owners in Pompeii's last period sought to impress by assembling objects of many varieties of white marble and seeks to test it by isotopic provenance analysis of two well dated in situ assemblages.

The growing availability of marble since the Augustan period posed the problem: how was a contestant for status to distinguish himself from the less wealthy who were now able to afford expanses of Luna marble? Polychrome marbles were still out of reach for all but the richest, so grouping many varieties of white marbles was a good alternative. Here I make the assumption that cultivated Romans could identify many kinds of white marbles. This runs against the healthy scepticism toward the connoisseurship claimed by modern scholars from Lepsius to Ashmole but is not relevant to Romans in their own time. Roman writers regularly evoke both white and polychrome marbles by name, clear evidence of their detailed knowledge.

Most garden furniture at Pompeii has been dispersed or stolen. The House of the Vettii is exceptional because the excavators earmarked it as a show house from the beginning; its contents were well documented (A. Mau, RM 11 (1896) 3-97; A. Sogliano, Monumenti antichi dell'Accademia dei Lincei 8 (1898) cols. 233-416) and have remained together. To my eye, they are carved of

white marble from Luna, Thasos, Paros, Pentelikon, Dokimeion and quarries of gray marble). The objects seem to be arranged in pairs of the same marble across the long axis of the peristyle. The second assemblage is the garden

triclinium of the newly excavated House of the (VI 17 (Ins. Occ.) 42). The front facing of the couches appears to be of Pentelic (1) and (3) marbles, the lining of the nymphaeum between the couches Luna (2), and the facing of the plate tray Parian (4).

Isotopic analysis is now a proven technique, rapid, minimally destructive and usually decisive; where it is not, appropriate ancillary measurements are well established (Pollini et al, cited above, p. 277ff.). Analysis will be carried out by my collaborators, Dott. L. Lazzarini (Department of Architectural History, University of Venice) and Dott. B. Turi (Department of Geology, University of Rome). The technique is to drill a 5mm hole about 2cm into an inconspicuous surface and extract powder.

I seek support to travel to Rome to collaborate with the geologists and do final research, to work at Pompeii for three weeks, and to defray the cost of processing the samples.

Pompeian garden furniture has been studied in terms of genre and motif (E. Pernice, Hellenistische Tische, Zisternenmundungen, Beckenuntersatze, Altaere und Truhen. Berlin 1932; N. Neuerberg, L'architettura delle fontane e dei ninfei nell' Italia antica. Memorie dell'Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, V, Naples 1965). An interesting dissertation touched on marble type analysis but did not carry it into practice (R. Cohon, Greek and Roman Marble Table Supports with Decorative Reliefs (Diss., NYU Institute of Fine Arts, 1984). Much sampling has been done on sculpture and on architectural marbles, but no one has examined intact assemblages of domestic furniture. Thus this research would be novel.

"Imported Marble at Pompeii, Real and Painted Imitation," in J. J. Dobbins and P. Foss eds., Pompeii and the ancient settlements under Vesuvius (London, Routledge, 1999), in press.

"Finto Marmo at Pompeii: evidence for taste and trade," Proceedings of the Vth ASMOSIA Conference, Boston Museum of Fine Arts 1998, in preparation.

"Ideology, Gift and Trade: A Distribution Model for the Roman Imperial Marbles," in W. V. Harris ed., The Inscribed Economy: Production and Distribution in the Roman Empire in the Light of Instrumentum Domesticum (JRA supp. vol. 6 1993) 145-70.

spoken Italian; reading Latin, Greek, Italian, German, French. I am competent in these.

*University of Akron Summer Faculty Fellowship $8000 summer 1999

this grant provides for summer free time only and is paid as salary.

University of Akron Teaching Excellence grant $4500 1997

PREVIOUS APhSoc GRANT?

yes, 1986, $2500

Prof. John Dobbins

MacIntire Department of Art

University of Virginia

Charlottesville VA 22904

(804) 924-6123

Prof. Mosche Fischer

Dept. of Classical Studies, Tel-Aviv University

69978 Ramat Aviv ISRAEL email fischer@post.tau.ac.il

Institute of Fine Arts

1 E. 78^th St., New York NY 10021

(212) 772-5800

J. Clayton FANT: Bibliography of Chief Publications,

"Ideology, Gift and Trade: A Distribution Model for the Roman Imperial Marbles," in W. V. Harris ed., The Inscribed Economy: Production and Distribution in the Roman Empire in the Light of Instrumentum Domesticum (JRA supp. vol. 6 1993) 145-70.

"The Imperial Marble Yard at Portus," in M. Waelkens, N. Herz, and L. Moens, eds. 1992, Ancient Stones: Quarrying, Trade and Provenance. Interdisciplinary Studies on Stones and Stone Technology in Europe and Near East from the Prehistoric to the Early Christian Period. Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia, Monographia 4: 115-20.

"New Sculptural and Architectural Finds from Docimium," VII. Arastirma sonuclari toplantisi. Ayribasm. Antalya 18-23 Mayis 1989. (Ankara 1990) 111-18.

Cavum Antrum Phrygiae: The Organization and Operations of the Roman Imperial Marble Quarries at Docimium (BAR International Series, no. 482, 1989).

"Poikiloi Lithoi: the Anomalous Economics of the Roman Imperial Marble Quarry at Teos," in The Greek Renaissance in the Roman Empire. Papers from the Xth British Museum Classical Colloquium. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (BICS) Supplement 55 (1989) 206-18. *

Ancient Marble Quarrying and Trade (BAR International Series no. 453, 1988), edited with introduction.

"IRT 794b and the Building History of the Hadrianic Baths at Leptis Magna," ZPE 75 (1988) 291-94.

"The Roman Emperors in the Marble Business: Capitalists, Middlemen or Philanthropists?" in N. Herz and M. Waelkens eds., Classical Marble: Geochemistry, Technology, Trade (Dordrecht 1988) 147-58.

* resulted from support of an American Philosophical Society Grant.

Address and CV:

Classics 326 Olin Hal

University of Akron

Akron OH 44325-1910

Associate Professor, Classics and History (joint appointment)

born New York City, 28 May 1947

University of Michigan Ph.D, Classical Studies 1976

CURRENT STATUS of Research (November 2000):

Samples were taken in spring of 2000 during a residency at the British School at Rome. They were processed in Venice and the powder was sent to Rome for analysis. Unfortunately they were misplaced in Rome until November of this year and are only now being analyzed.

Preliminary results will be presented at the workshop Marble in the Roman World at the AIA meetings in San Diego, January 4, 2001.