Tinker Tailor Votive Willies

Caroline Lawrence with the artefact

It is a snapping cold day in February and I am hot on the trail of a Roman artefact from Rome's ancient port of Ostia, the setting of most of my Roman Mysteries series of books. The artefact – a small marble relief of four women and a baby – first came to my attention when someone posted it on an Ostia Facebook Group. We were all very excited because none of us had ever seen it before! A few quick emails told us that it was part of the Wellcome Trust Collection with the Science Museum. It was in storage at a museum repository in West London. As the only member of the Ostia Group based there, I volunteered to go and have a look. My motive was not unselfish: as an author of historical detective stories this is exactly the sort of object that can give me an entire plot line!

East Wing of Blythe House 1924

So on 2 February 2012, I take the train from Clapham Junction to Kensington Olympia, then walk to 23 Blythe Road. I've been to this part of London many times, (and even done a couple of book signings at Brook Green Books), but I never knew about the Victorian treasure box that is Blythe House. Built around the year 1900, its original purpose was to house the Post Office Savings Bank. At one time over a thousand female clerks worked here, segregated from their male counterparts for propriety's sake. They all used to enter via the East (i.e. back) Wing.

East Wing of Blythe House 2012

In 1979 the British Government bought part of Blythe House to use as extra storage space for the British Museum, the Victorian & Albert, and the Science Museum with the Wellcome Trust. The late Sir Roy Strong, director of the V&A called Blythe House "a marvellous building" and said it "should be not just a dumping ground but an exciting new complex for the public." It is a marvellous building. Still attached to the West Kensington Postal sorting office and minus the smokestacks visible in earlier photos, the distinctive red and white brickwork makes it look like a glorious confection of Lego blocks.

Shivering in my down parka, I arrive at the east wing of Blythe House, the same entrance used by all those female clerks. I go to a turnstile called Gate A and press the call button. Anyone can visit, but you have to make an appointment first. I have been put in touch with Ms. Katie Maggs and she has kindly agreed to meet me and show me the artefact. The place is maze-like even before I get inside, but I manage to find reception up some outside stairs. I check in with a porter behind a window. He gives me a yellow plastic pass. Katie meets me a few minutes later. She is young, warm, friendly and informative. With a degree in Classics from the University of Warwick followed by two MAs from University College London, one in Museum Studies and one in History of Medicine, she is the perfect person to tell me about the unusual artefact I'm about to examine.

As Katie leads me down a succession of corridors, stairs and passageways, I get a strong sense of deja vu. I've never been here before, but it seems terribly familiar. There is an odd 1970s institutional feel; it reminds me of the recent film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

'This place has an odd 1970s institutional feel,' I say. 'It's like something out of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.'

'That's because they filmed it here,' says Katie. 'They spent four days here last September.'

Toby Jones (Alleline) & Ciarán Hinds (Bland) on the roof of Blythe House

As a film buff and big fan of the movie, this is an added bonus to my visit! I learn that other movies and TV series were filmed here, (e.g. Minder and The New Avengers). You can also see an atmospheric short film called The Phantom Museum set in the maze of corridors, stairwells and storerooms at Blythe House.

Katie points out the willies

Our first stop is a nondescript door in one of those corridors. Katie has taken me here to pick up gloves, but really - bless her generous heart - she wants to show me some of the ancient treasures stored here. Henry Wellcome, an American adventurer and medical archaeologist, collected over a million objects to do with ancient life and especially medicine. The cream of his collection is on show in a permanent collection called Medicine Man at the Wellcome Collection near Euston, but there are plenty more goodies here in Blythe House. This particular room is full of shelves of clay body parts. These are the objects Romans dedicated to their gods if they wanted healing for a specific part of the body. I see dozens of heads, hands, feet, wombs, babies, breasts, & willies.

Yes, willies. If you couldn't wee or do other useful things with your dangly bits, or if you had some sort of boil or spot, you would dedicate a clay model of the appendage to the appropriate god. And you would pray very, very hard.

Votive eyes (& lead slingbullets?)

On the shelves I also see plaster casts of objects, e.g. a big bunch of votive intestines and the famous Babylonian divination liver in the British Museum. There are a couple of charming pigs. Why pigs? It was an agrarian society, deeply concerned with food and survival. If a farmer had a sick pig, he would offer a votive to the god. In addition to the large and medium objects on shelves, there are also drawers with smaller objects: grotesque faces, wooden nit combs, Etruscan false teeth, a flint knife, marbles, tiny votive statues and votive eyes, some of which look suspiciously like lead sling-bullets.

funeral slab with plug and hole

One funerary object in particular captures my attention: an inscribed slab with a plug over a carved hole into which the mourner could pour a libation of wine to refresh the ashes of the dead lying beneath. I knew about this custom but never realised that there was a special type of slab to make this easier. (I told my hairdresser about these libation slabs the day after my visit and she said a friend of hers often goes to his dad's grave with two beers. He drinks one himself and pours out the other in slurps for his father. I guess we're not so different from the Romans, after all.)

Henry Wellcome in Indian headdress

Henry Solomon Wellcome had a fascinating life. Born in a frontier log cabin in Almond, Wisconsin in the year 1853, his interest in archaeology was sparked by the find of an Indian arrowhead when he was only four. Five years later, his family moved west in a covered wagon and were caught up in a bloody Sioux uprising in Minnesota. Nine-year-old Henry helped his pharmacist uncle Jacob tend those wounded by arrows and tomahawks. These two incidents sparked his abiding interest in "primitive" peoples. Henry gained his love of medicine from working in his uncle's pharmacy. Later, he studied medicine, grew a moustache and went on an expedition to South America in search of quinine bark. In 1880 he moved to London to set up a pharmaceutical business with a friend. From then on, England was his base for travel all over the world. He met famous explorers, associated with cultured socialites and married the beautiful daughter of Dr. Barnardo. But his main fame is for all the artefacts he collected himself and through others, over a million during his lifetime. He was finally knighted and died at the ripe old age of 83, leaving his collection to the Wellcome Foundation, the Trust he himself established.

My three passions are the Romans, the Wild West and movies. In the oft-filmed Blythe House with its many Roman artefacts collected by an American born in the Wild West, those passions have come together in a delightful way. At the end of my hour with the charming and generous Katie, I am excited and enthused. And I haven't even told you about the object of my visit. That I must leave for another blog (which you can find HERE.)

P.S. You can find hundreds more fascinating objects on the Science Museum's great interactive website, Brought to Life. There is also a superb site devoted to Henry Wellcome. And, oh, all right! As you've made it to the end of this post, here is a picture of some votive willies. If you want to make your own investigation, start here.

Should Pompeii have a Theme Park?

You might have heard me on BBCRadioFour recently, arguing for an historical theme park version of Pompeii to be built near the site. Why on earth should we do such a thing? Here are ten reasons I think it would be a great idea.

1. To preserve the ruins
Two to three million tourists pass through Pompeii every year. It is wonderful that there is such an interest in ancient history, but the sheer volume of people is slowly but surely destroying the remains, especially mosaics and frescoes. After my interview, someone tweeted this: thought your theme park idea interesting on BBCr4today - but would people visit theme-park and abandon Pompeii? My answer was: Yes! Only the keenest would visit the real Pompeii & it would ease wear & tear. By making our "Living Pompeii" more attractive to young, fun-loving and casual tourists it would make space in the real ruins for scholars, students and super keen tourists. They could in theory visit one or the other, or both.

2. To let visitors SEE ancient Pompeii

re-enactor girl rides horse at Archeon

When I say "Theme Park" I do not mean Disneyland (though there's plenty right with Disneyland) but something more like Archeon, the wondeful Dutch Historical Theme Park near Amsterdam. They have three periods: Prehistorical, Medieval and Roman, and all three are brilliantly reproduced. They aren't just fronts, but buildings you can walk into and look around, e.g. the baths, an arena for gladiatorial combat and a roman style villa. For Pompeii we could replicate one of the most famous streets, the Via dell'Abbondanza, with election graffiti, frescoes, shop signs, and upper stories as well as ground floors. Fountains would bubble and some could overflow, showing tourists why the famous stepping stones existed in such a dry climate!

3. To let visitors TOUCH ancient Pompeii. 

"Vespasian" & "Lupus"

"Don't touch!" is a refrain often heard on archaeological sites, and quite right. (I was at unpoliced Herculaneum a few years ago and kids were swinging on the columns) But what if kids were allowed or even encouraged to touch bronze statues, marble facing, iron gates, frescoed walls, granite paving stones? What if they could dip their hands in full fountains or stroke hand woven rugs for sale? What if they could recline in a litter, the comfortable means of transportation for lazy rich people?


4. To let visitors TASTE ancient Pompeii

illustration from brochure of now defunct Magna Roma

Food, glorious food! Ancient Romans loved street snacks: chickpea pancakes, spicy sausages wrapped in vine leaves, pistachio nuts in papyrus cones. (You can still buy roast chestnuts in paper cones by the Spanish Steps). So why not have a caupona or two? Or three? You can serve authentic Roman fast food to the tourists. We could start a new craze for the favourite drink of the Roman Legionary. Posca is vinegar-tinted water. It is extremely refreshing and the vinegar kills most bacteria, so it's healthy.  For a few years there existed in Rome a restaurant called Magna Roma. Run by a retired Etruscologist, it served "authentic ancient food". Nothing revolting like fried sows' nipples or stuffed dormice, but unusual meals like a gustatio of small fishes formed of chopped chicken liver and served on "lettuce waves" (the Romans loved presenting one food as another) followed by sea-bass in oenogarum sauce with plums and carraway seeds and finished off with a mensa secunda of celery poached in honey. No forks. Only spoons, knives, fingers and napkins. This could be a proper sit down restaurant like Magna Roma, which failed due to a combination of bad publicity and poor location.

5. To let visitors SMELL ancient Pompeii

a priest examines the omens

Dare I suggest that toilets at our replica Pompeii be like the ancient foricae from the Roman world? If so, tourists would enter through a revolving wooden door and find themselves in an airy room with a marble bench around three sides of the wall, with holes on top (for the obvious) and holes at the front (for the bottom-wiper sponge-stick) but no dividing walls and no doors so you sat right next to your friend and did what you had to do! Maybe there could be two versions of toilets in our replica Pompeii: the authentic Roman foricae and Roman-ish but private cubicles for the modest. Other smells could come from the food being cooked at cauponas and tabernas (see above). We could have authentic fullers, with people stamping wool in vats full of urine. Don't like that idea? How about this: gardens! Yes, we could plant fragrant gardens based on Pompeian templates. Thanks to modern archeology, we know exactly what plants they put in their inner gardens and orchards. Maybe the stalls could sell fruit in season: apricots, peaches, watermelon, apples, figs, olives, nuts, mulberries... That won't have changed in 2000 years.

6. To let visitors EXPERIENCE ancient Pompeii - It goes without saying that there will be gladiatorial combats. But what about a priest giving the morning or evening offering? A sale of slaves fresh off the boat? An orator defending a public case in the forum? The town crier announcing the time and various events in a big voice. A poetry reading? Even a more-or-less-realistic session at the baths!

7. To let visitors INTERACT with ancient Romans

a runaway slave

But who will be cooking the food, selling the goods, fighting the combats and reading the poetry, you ask. Re-enactors! In the world today there is a huge number of people who dress up as people from the past. These are men, women and children who leave their ordinary lives behind for a weekend or two per year to dress up in ancient garb and become someone else. Archeon theme park invites various re-enactment groups from all over Europe to come. They get room and board, but pay for their own travel and give their time for free. Each of them is an expert in their own field. As an historical author, I rely heavily on input from living history actors, as they like to call themselves. Some people think re-enactors should "get a life". I think re-enactors have at least two lives: their day-to-day life and their ancient alter-ego! I recently posted a POLL on my Facebook page, asking re-enactors why they gave up precious time to dress up and "inhabit" the past. The top three answers were 1. To learn more about their period, 2. To inspire children to study history, 3. To share their knowledge with others. All most commendable. It's great to stop and see how a mosaic-maker does it. Or watch a fresco-painter at work. Or ask a runaway slave what is branded on her forehead!

8. To let visitors TAKE AWAY SOUVENIRS from the replica Pompeii, not the original 

Instead of selling tacky souvenirs, the re-enactors and craftsmen could sell good quality replicas of real Roman artefacts. These could range from something as simple and cheap as a wax tablet and wooden stylus, to an amethyst signet ring carved with Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins. Kids, teachers and researchers could by bronze strigils, styli, fibulae, hair pins and oil-lamps. They could buy rugs woven in the loom or mosaics made by hand. Imitation coins, jewelry, votive objects and tools all teach us more about the Romans. I adore replica artefacts and so do children at the schools I visit. There is something very powerful about handing a real object from the past, but a well-made imitation can be almost as inspiring. You can see my top twelve favourite replica artefacts HERE.

9. To channel casual tourists away from the fragile ruins.
I mentioned it above, but I want to say it again: with attractions such as the ones just listed, energetic school children and enthusiastic tourists would have a totally authentic immersive feel of Pompeii. They will then understand more about the actual remains when they see them. IF they see them. If they are happy with their ersatz experience, there is no need for them to drag around the real ruins. After a fun but exhausting day at replica Pompeii, only the keenest will want to visit the real site. And I think that is OK.

10. To fund more policing and preservation of the ancient site

author Caroline Lawrence tries out a litter at Archeon

In an ideal world, the "Pompeii Theme Park" would make a massive amount of money, just like Disneyland. It would have so much going for it from the start: a guaranteed volume of tourists, the fame, the fortune. This profit could then be channelled back to upkeep of the theme park but more importantly, to the real ruins themselves. One of the great things about a replica theme park is that it could also be hired out to film and documentary companies, like Empire Studios in Tunisia or Boyana Studios in Bulgaria, where the Roman Mysteries TV series was filmed. Also, you could have night-time events. One of my Twitter followers suggested semi-erotic adult night-time events with dancing girls and peeled grapes à la Up Pompeii or my favourite ancient Roman film, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Brilliant!

And so, upon that note of peeled grapes and increased revenue for the real Pompeii, I rest my case.

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P.S. Five fascinating facts I learned from Prof. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill at our Pompeii Panel on Weds 27 July 2011.

1. Pompeii has been "preserved" in a variety of ways over the past century and a half. These methods of preservation reveal Pompeii's more recent past.

2. It is not the volume of tourist traffic that is hurting Pompeii most, it is the lack of roofing.

3. The sections of Pompeii which are closed to the public are often in worse condition than the heavily visited parts.

4. Some streets of Pompeii were destroyed by allied bombs in WWII. Prof. Wallace-Hadrill says one of these ruined streets could be rebuilt as an historical theme park and populated by re-enactors.

5. Any schemes we propose are theoretical anyway as we have no power to implement them. Pompeii's preservation lies in the hands of the Italian government.

Getty Villa in Malibu at dusk

P.S. Would anyone object if it looked like the Getty Villa? No, but they might not be happy if it ended up like the slightly scruffy Pharaonic Village in Cairo.