Giuseppe Fiorelli

Giuseppe Fiorelli ( born June 8, 1823 in Naples, † January 28, 1896 ) was an Italian archaeologist and numismatist.

Fiorelli began at eighteen to study law, but changed to archeology. In 1844 he joined the staff in the supervision of the archaeological excavations in Naples and as a young man late 1840s inspector of excavations at Pompeii. Because of his liberal political views, he was released but after the revolution in 1849 and temporarily detained. In 1853 he entered the service of the Count of Syracuse, brother of King Ferdinand II After the end of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the founding of the Kingdom of Italy Fiorelli was the end of 1860 Professor of Archaeology at the University of Naples, three years later the Director of the National Museum in Naples and director of excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum. In 1875 he went as Director General of museums and excavations to Rome. He was a member of the Italian Senate (since 1865) and the Accademia dei Lincei.

Fiorelli systematized and modernized the excavation method in Pompeii. He secured the excavated buildings from collapse and weathering. Unlike previous excavator he dug out from the top and not let first uncover the streets and then from the side of the houses. He devoted special attention to findings that documented the everyday life of the city as charred bread in a bakery. Fiorelli invented the method, the cavity, the bodies were left in the hardened ash, pour off with plaster and thus to produce a plaster model of the dead. He received an impressive testimony of human life and suffering in the lost city. Later, you could use this method to smaller cavities, such as furniture or tree roots, pour out.