Dec. 20, 2006 — The mountains of garbage that often fill the streets in the Italian city of Naples and surrounding areas aren't just a modern-day problem, suggest ancient wall inscriptions.
Using infrared reflectography, a non-destructive technique commonly
used to peek beneath the surface of paintings, Italian
researchers have brought to light two inscriptions against garbage dumping in the ancient Roman town Herculaneum.
The modest town was destroyed, along with its more famous neighbor Pompeii, in the first-century eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
The finding shows that even before the eruption buried Herculaneum
under 75 feet of ash, local authorities were already
trying to reign in trash.
Luciano Rosario Maria Vicari, director of an applied optics
laboratory at Naples University, and colleagues analyzed Herculaneum's notice board, which
was found on the eastern side of the city's water tank.
The board for public notices consisted of a plastered rectangular
area that housed the "tituli picti," — painted inscriptions used to
communicate decrees and measures.
Painted in black, the inscriptions were carefully placed on straight
parallel lines carved on the plaster.
"The plastered area worked as a blackboard — the previous inscriptions
were wiped with a thin plaster layer to make space to a new
inscription," Vicari told Discovery News.
The most recent inscription was found by inscriptions expert Matteo Della Corte in the mid-1900s. It contained a decree by the magistrate Alficius Paulus against the dumping of waste.
Della Corte realized there was a second inscription on the
plaster layer underneath, and tried in vain to bring it to light.
Painted inscriptions fade quicky in the sun and rain, once exposed.
