Pompeii Casts. Victim 18, female, found in 1895 in the torcularium of the Villa Pisanella at Boscoreale.

The large room that formed this torcularium was entirely plastered; in the wall facing the entrance doorway ran a raised ledge that indicated a separation of foundation, and in fact at the same level continued for all that side of the building (see fig.52), and marked precisely the floor of the countryside, that, as we have said, ran for about a metre from the front of the building to the rear part (p.400).

Around the presses, the walls were coated with a cuff of smoothed opus signinum, for the purpose of cleaning that it required, in order that the walls and presses could be washed. The two windows that we have seen on the front (see fig. 51), corresponded to another two large windows on the rear wall, that not only would have been closed by shutters, but also secured with grills. On top, on the line of the large earthenware dolia, opened another two small windows. Also on the top of the rear wall remained the holes for large shelves, which were to constitute the carnarium, i.e. that place where the tools of the torcularium were kept after the work had been done.

The ziri (earthenware jugs, painted inside, used to store oil, etc) that were found buried at the edges of the fora, were very large and of a common form. In these, were read within rectangular name-plate, the stamp – SEXOBINISALVI

The torcularium, so big and well defended by a strong cover, was believed to be a safe shelter at the moment of the catastrophe, and the last inhabitants of the villa took refuge from the lapilli, and there they met their deaths.  On the edge of the forum to the left of the entrance (a), three corpses were overturned, on top of one another. Of one, the one that lay along the bench and with head on the edge, it was possible to make an entire plaster-cast.  He was on his back with his body stretched out and his head thrown backward, with right arm raised and almost resting on his elbow on the ground, with left arm stretched out along his side and enveloped in his garment, and with legs and feet out in the cold, as seen in fig. 53b.

Victim 18. Boscoreale, Villa della Pisanella. 1897. Torcularium. Body cast of head and abdomen.

See Pasqui A., La Villa Pompeiana della Pisanella presso Boscoreale, in Monumenti Antichi VII 1897, fig. 53d.

Victim 18 was probably a female of 20 years of age and over.

The body was found in 1895, in the torcularium of the Villa del Tesoro, in località Pisanella, Boscoreale.

She had folds of a probable coat over the mouth and chin.

See Osanna, N., Capurso, A., e Masseroli, S. M., 2021. I Calchi di Pompei da Giuseppe Fiorelli ad oggi: Studi e Ricerche del PAP 46, p. 360 Calco n. 17 and n. 89.

Victim 18. Boscoreale, Villa della Pisanella. 2015.

Remains of head with folds of a probable coat over the mouth and chin.

The torso was destroyed in the bombing of 1943 and the woman's head damaged and only partly recovered.

See Garcia y Garcia, L., 2006. Danni di guerra a Pompei. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, p. 198, fig. 463.

Victim 18 on left and victim 16 on right. Boscoreale, Villa della Pisanella. 1923. Torcularium.

Body cast of head and abdomen of victim 18 and the head of a woman, victim 16, in Pompeii Antiquarium.

See Sogliano, A., 1923. Guida di Pompei: 3rd ed. Milano, p. 5.

The torso was destroyed in the bombing of 1943 and the woman's head damaged and only partly recovered.

See Garcia y Garcia, L., 2006. Danni di guerra a Pompei. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, p. 198, fig. 463.

Victim 18 was laid crosswise as well compared to victim 17, and from the hips down was under the woman's corpse [victim 16]. It was therefore only possible to make the cast of the head until the abdomen (fig. 53 d). He was a man covered with a raised cloak around his mouth, with body stretched out on the forum, and with legs along the bench, and with his left arm along his side, and the other bent at the top and with a closed fist.

Around the skeletons were gathered a few oxidised copper and silver coins, and some bronze rings. On the woman’s skull [victim 16] were two earrings of wide hoops of gold, around which three topazes were set. There appeared also traces of silver ornaments and iron tools which were unrecognisable because of oxidisation. Towards the window, in the vicinity of these corpses, the skeleton of a dog was stretched out.