Pompeii Documentary Features W&L Professor
Rebecca Benefiel, Abigail Grigsby Urquhart Professor of Classics at Washington and Lee University, is featured in the NOVA documentary “Pompeii’s Secret Underworld,” which first ran on the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) network on Feb. 19.
NOVA is an American popular science program known for featuring science and research experts on a wide range of topics. Recognized for her expertise on ancient graffiti, Benefiel was filmed onsite in Pompeii in April 2024 and appears several times throughout the documentary, analyzing graffiti and other artifacts that paint a picture of the social and economic fabric of Pompeian society.
The documentary highlights many recent discoveries that have been made at Pompeii in the last few years, including new excavations. Among the many international scholars and archaeologists featured, Benefiel is the only professor from a university in the U.S.
In her first appearance, occurring around the 9:14 mark of the nearly 54-minute film documentary, Benefiel demonstrates how modern technology can be utilized to uncover ancient painted inscriptions that have been lost to the naked eye, eventually translating a message from a shop owner to the local community about a bronze pot that had been stolen from the location and the reward offered for its return. The message also hints at the potential punishment for the thievery, revealing even more about the social makeup of the ancient city.
At the 12:30 mark, Benefiel assesses the intricate locking system for a door from a traditional middle-class home in Pompeii to reveal the level of security used to deter potential theft in a city known to exhibit immense wealth alongside extreme poverty. Benefiel reappears in the documentary at the 43:50 mark, further discussing the social and financial makeup of Pompeian society.
“Beyond poverty and wealth existing side by side, Pompeii shows a surprising potential for economic and social mobility during the early Roman Empire,” said Benefiel. “It is a privilege to work at Pompeii and be able to document life in the ancient world in such incredible detail.”
Benefiel has led more than 60 students and faculty in fieldwork at Pompeii and Herculaneum, bringing ancient graffiti to the public through a digital resource called the Ancient Graffiti Project. She has authored numerous articles and publications and co-edited books “Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World” and “The Epigraphic Cultures of Greece, Rome and Beyond.” Currently, she is co-editing “The Oxford Handbook to Pompeii.” Additionally, her National Geographic podcast on the graffiti of Pompeii was named one of the top five travel podcasts by Exploreworldwide.com.
Benefiel has been a member of the W&L faculty since 2005. She has served as department head for the Department of Classics and is a core faculty member for the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program. She has also been an affiliated faculty member for the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and served as a humanities faculty member for the Digital Humanities Working Group. In 2011, she received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. She has been a recipient of the Rome Prize and has held fellowships at the Library of Congress and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey. She has also been an invited professor at Sapienza University in Rome.
