Yesterday, I got an email in the inbox of my university account. It was a bit of a strange email, from a certain ‘A T’, without salutation, without any introductory text (except for ‘FYI’), but with just a couple of links to two short youtube films, and to a page where I could buy a fourteen page booklet advertised with the ominous words ‘scientific study’. Oh, and there was this short sentence ‘waiting for your comments’, and the full name of the scientist in question. It would cost me six euros to download a pdf of the ‘scientific study’, and I quickly decided not to. It wasn’t even a decision, I guess, I just didn’t consider paying for it: if you are ‘waiting for my comments’, just send me the text, and don’t expect me to pay for it. All in all, it was a slightly remarkable email, but worse was to come.
It appeared that most of the booklet actually was online and searchable through Google Books. The booklet, sorry, ‘scientific study’ was titled ‘Features of the Domenico Fontana’s Water Conduit (the Canal of Count Sarno) and the Date of Pompeii Destruction’ and written by a certain Andreas Tschurilow. The tragic thing is that the argument brought forward is, to put it politely, completely bizarre, insane and utterly nonsensical. The author of this ‘scientific study’, whose name is preceded by two titles suggesting that he at least once had the intellectual capacity to complete some form of higher education, argues that Pompeii was not destructed in 79AD but in 1631AD. I repeat this one time so that you know I am not kidding you: the author of this ‘scientific study’, whose name is preceded by two titles suggesting that he at least once had the intellectual capacity to complete some form of higher education, argues that Pompeii was not destructed in 79AD but in 1631AD. To put it less mildly: the lost soul wants us to pay six euros to read fourteen pages of complete bullshit.
More worryingly, if you Google for ‘Pompeii’ and ‘Fontana’ – in case you want to know something about the canal dug through the (then unexcavated) city in the late 16th century, Tschurilow’s booklet will be among the ten first search results. The two videos even take a second and a third place. The madness might even find an audience, and in a worst case scenario, we may even get a Bosnian pyramid discussion going on here – the man even seems to have students defending the indefensible. That Pompeii was full of texts, and that these are all written in Latin and not in Italian does not count. The advocates of Tschurilow’s fantasies will probably come up, at some point, with the idea that these actually were fabricated by the excavators. That Pompeian artifacts closely resemble artifacts found in first century AD contexts throughout the Roman world, and that there is nothing that even closely resembles the material culture of the early seventeenth century also will be explained away in some way or another, as well as the fact that the most recent coins fount on the site were minted under Vespasian – and not under Phillip IV of Spain.
The two videos (1 | 2) are nice pieces of home creativity. We see the author in what seems to be his own living room (note the harness in the background), talking to the camera, sometimes stumbling over his own autocue. We hear suggestive new age synthesizer music, and insinuations about what the archaeological authorities leave behind for the general public – ‘this part of the city was excavated in the 1950s, but its results were never published’ says Tschurilow ominously over slowly evolving new age sounds – as if it is all a conspiracy against the common man who has to keep on believing the big lie that he is actually walking in a Roman city because otherwise those in power (who know the inconvenient truth) would loose their face, their position and their money. The conspiracy theory is, of course, never expressed explicitly, but hangs over the film like a shadow of suspicion. Apparently, Tschurilow is unaware of the fact that you can get permits to visit parts of the site closed to the public and to read Maiuri’s unpublished excavation reports.
In a way, of course, watching these films is kind of fun. It is almost a parody. The tragic thing is, however, that for the big genius behind it, it is all highly serious business. The man has spent many, many hours reading books, looking up documents, and those living with him have had to live with his grand theory as well for I don’t know how long. The two Youtube films must have cost many evening hours in preparing, filming and editing. There must have been several purpose-made journeys to the site, consuming time, and money. It has been quite a hobby – or perhaps even more than that. This makes me feel kind of uneasy in writing harsh words about this. People are and should be free to pursue their questions, to find their answers and to put whatever they conclude on the internet, however rubbish it is. If you think it is fun, it is fun. It is up to us, the professionals, to find a way to deal with the bullshit that comes out of such hobbyism. Maybe we should just neglect it and don’t bother at all – which would mean that we take the risk of giving up parts of our field to pseudoscience. Or maybe we should, perhaps occasionally, plainly and harshly say, like I am doing now, that somebody has produced complete bullshit and is trying to sell it as science: if you want to engage in discussion, fine, but be prepared – if the madness is too insane, we might bite back, and that might hurt a bit. After all, we have some responsibility for our field: Pompeii shouldn’t end up like the Pyramids.
So let’s conclude: Andreas Tschurilow has spent many hours producing something that, in the end, is a parody of good scholarship. The man knows nothing of Pompeii, or has made a complete mess of the bunch of facts that he has learnt. He should take his stuff from the internet or at least stop claiming that his work is scientific, which it clearly is not. He probably will not do this, but at least, I hope, people will be able to find a critique of his work.
Miko Flohr, 13/02/2011
