If you thought “I was here” style graffiti was a modern phenomenon confined to the backs of bathroom stalls, think again! New technologies are uncovering graffiti scrawled at ancient sites like never before, giving voice to everyday people of the ancient world – from enslaved individuals to bored soldiers who carved their names on walls.
The epicenter of ancient graffiti research, it could be said, is the once bustling city of Pompeii, which was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The eruption left excellently preserved buildings under meters of ash.
Since excavations began in the 18th century, archaeologists have been busy uncovering colorful paintings, frescoes and mosaics, primarily in the homes of the city’s elite.
But in recent years, a growing number of researchers have been focusing on the messages of everyday people – from slaves to traders. “There has been an increase in studies on ancient graffiti in the last 15, maybe 20 years, and it’s very exciting,” says historian Rebecca Benefil, its initiator. ancient graffiti projectA user-friendly platform that digitizes ancient frescoes from the early Roman Empire found in Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum.
“Social media has certainly increased the reach of new discoveries,” Benefiel told DW.
The writing is on the wall
The word “Graffiti“ It can be traced back to the Ancient Greek verb “graphene”, meaning “to write” or “to draw”.
Unlike a pre-planned piece of literature or dedicated inscription, graffiti are spontaneous creations written by everyday people – much like the graffiti found in urban areas today. And because they are found in situ, they provide first-hand information about what life was like in a place centuries ago.
One reason for the new interest, Benefiel explains: “When graffiti were first being discovered in the 1830s and 1840s, there was initial excitement about what these little handwritten scratches could tell us.”
But then, “August Maui, an influential Roman archaeologist, said, ‘Well, they’re not really giving us anything concrete, they’re like tourists today who write their names on a wall,'” she explains. “They hindered the study of the writing of the everyday population for more than a century.”
A prayer and an indomitable poem
“I think we really missed that because it’s exciting to see what people from all social levels were writing about,” the historian says. And also, where were they writing it: “It was really a paradigm shift to see that graffiti was all over the city, in all kinds of places,” Benfell explains. “This is not something that is just done by some teenagers, as some people might say when they try to understand antiquity through our modern lens.”
Some of Benefil’s favorite discoveries include messages from people who rarely make it into the history books.
For example, a slave woman named Methe wrote a prayer to Venus, the god of Pompeii: “Methe loves Crestus, may the Pompeian Venus be friendly to each of them in her heart and may they both live with one heart,” it read. “This was an enslaved person that we generally knew nothing about. But now we have this beautiful prayer,” Benefiel explains.
Other works quote Latin literature, such as the beginning of Virgil’s “Aeneid.” Benefiel explains, “I think those quotes from Latin poetry are the equivalent of our music. It’s something that’s playing in the back of your head like a soundtrack. You can write it and someone else can know the next line.”
It seems one writer had a lot to say about Virgil, and instead of the work’s opening lines: “I sing about weapons and a man,” he wrote: “I sing about dry cleaners and a hoot owl, not about a man’s weapons.”
New technology advances research
Meanwhile, new technology is opening up further possibilities for ancient graffiti research, namely the use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) which uses special lighting to highlight scratches in plaster that the naked eye can no longer see.
Focusing on a particular corridor in Pompeii that once led to a theatre, Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, professor of history at the University of Quebec, and Alois Letelier-Telifer and Louis Autin of the Sorbonne University in Paris recorded hundreds of fresco samples scratched into the plaster. They also documented 80 new inscriptions, which came as a surprise, as the surface was thought to be completely documented – a sign of the power of this new technology.
According to noted researchers, some of the frescoes have survived for more than 100 years. “It’s a difference from modern graffiti today – the fact that it didn’t cause any trouble to the authorities or it wasn’t a concern and they would leave it alone,” Marie-Adeline Le Guennec tells DW.
Researchers say some themes are more present than others – from carefully marked boats on the wall to “numerous images of gladiators”.
Le Guennec says, “It’s strange because people just picture gladiators, which makes it seem like they don’t care about the tragedies or comedies happening in the theater nearby.”
In addition to inscriptions containing pictures of people, animals and numbers, the team also found names with writings derived from thousands of miles away in the eastern Mediterranean. “We think they were soldiers from the Far East who stayed in Pompeii for a while and left their names on the walls – evidence that “I was here” style inscriptions have existed for centuries,” says Le Guennec.
As technology advances, the world will surely learn more about the lives of everyday people of the past thanks to these ancient carvings. “Each message has its own unique, distinctive voice and there’s something immediate and really powerful about that,” says Benefiel. “I think we can now appreciate all the individuals who lived in Pompeii, not just the ruling class.”
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier