In Italy, Pompeii’s Antiquarium Museum has been reopened after 36 years. The museum was temporarily closed after the World War Two bombings, but it also did not survive the 1980 Naples earthquake.
The museum’s new exhibition includes a vivid audio-visual recreation of the moment the ancient city was destroyed in 79 AD, as a result of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii and its inhabitants under a thick carpet of volcanic ash.
In 1748, a group of explorers rediscovered the site, and they were surprised to find that underneath a thick layer of dust and debris, the ancient city was mostly intact. The buildings, artifacts and skeletons left behind afforded invaluable information concerning everyday life in Pompeii.
One of the museum’s restorers, Sara Matilde Masseroli said the museum decided to exhibit one of the molds that was already on show here at the Antiquarium before the world war two bombings. The mold was of one of the victims of the volcanic eruption. Around 100 molds were made following 1863 when the great archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli created this technique. The technique involves pouring liquid plaster into the hardened ash that formed around the victim’s body after the decomposition of the body.
The show features a permanent exhibition called ‘Sacra Pompei’ana’, which is dedicated to the places of worship in pre-Roman Pompeii. The exhibition continues in the Villa Imperiale, a luxurious building dating back to the first century AD never open to the public before.
