![]() 1īeard presents questions, and notes conflicting viewpoints about the answers. She gives dates of excavation, linking these to Pompeii’s entry into the world of tourism and popular culture, reminding the reader that the city has not always been what it is now. ![]() Beard explains terms and the names of gates, streets, and houses, as well as why numbers were eventually assigned to houses. Skeletons reveal infectious diseases, spinal disorders, and tartar on everyone’s teeth, a record of ubiquitous bad breath in ancient Pompeii. The “Introduction” is a fine survey of what we know today about ancient Pompeii, and it is guaranteed to draw the attention of general readers - the imprint of a breast, burnt loaves of bread in ovens, paint-pots and buckets of plaster left behind on a scaffold, and a tethered guard dog that failed to escape. Mary Beard’s wonderfully engaging book about Pompeii is the answer to what to read before one’s first visit to the site or what to assign one’s students to interest them in the breadth of fields that pertain to the study of antiquity.
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