Years of neglect at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii are being dug and scrubbed away in a last-minute bid to keep money flowing from a huge European Union-backed renovation programme.
Workers in hard hats beaver away as tourists visiting the Italian World Heritage site peer through screens and wire fences at ruins of ancient houses where restorations are going into overdrive.
Submerged under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, Pompeii is one of the most visited archaeological sites in the world, giving a glimpse into daily life under the Roman empire.
But years of mismanagement and corruption have exacerbated decay at the sprawling, 66 hectare site, prompting the European Union to intervene. In 2012, it pledged €78 million to finance urgently needed repairs.
Italy threw some €27 million behind the Great Pompeii Project, which aims to rebuild collapsed arches, right sagging walls, clean frescoes and protect the area from water-logging.
Fast forward three years and only around €21 million out of the total €105 million on offer have been spent. Unless the site managers do the rest of the work by the original December 31 deadline, they risk losing access to this money to pay for it.
“We are really working against the clock,” said superintendent Massimo Osanna, an ex-university professor chosen by the government to take over in early 2014 to make a break with the site’s scandal-ridden past.
The project got bogged down in squabbles over who should lead the work and extra checks and balances put in place to keep contracts from falling into the hands of the local mafia
“If the timing had been respected more at the beginning we wouldn’t have this concentration of work that is causing problems now,” Prof. Osanna added.
The project got bogged down in squabbles over who should lead the work and extra checks and balances put in place to keep contracts from falling into the hands of the local mafia.
Prof. Osanna said the pace of work has almost doubled since late 2014, with around 30 technical interventions under way. “It has become a really busy city,” he said. “Not just visitors but workers, engineers, architects, experts – just think of managing the parking! These are all small things but taken together they become enormous.”
The hubbub is causing headaches at a site that attracts more than 2.5 million visitors a year.
“People find houses closed, lots of construction sites open, and it is difficult to get around,” said Stefano Vanacore, who has directed the restoration of several homes of ancient Pompeians, including the recently re-opened Villa dei Misteri. Twenty new technicians have been hired, but there is still not enough help to go around, said architect Maura Anamaria, who is overseeing €18 million worth of restorations.
Even after the current flurry of work is over, the site will need a long-term maintenance programme to keep it from degrading.
A third of the city has never been excavated and soil movements threaten the fragile ruins.
Italy now has until the end of 2015 to present a request to the European Commission to take the project into the following year with new funding.
The situation is an emotive example of centuries-worth of art and architecture that had been left to decay as a cash-strapped state failed to adapt to modern economic realities.