Sunday, August 21, 2011

Pompeii



We finally saw the Pompeii: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius exhibit at the Discovery Time Square Exposition Center. It was a very interesting exhibit, broken into a before and after arrangement. In between the two sections, there is a video presentation showing a recreation of the erruption of the volcano. The sound system lets you feel the rumble.

The frescoes are incredible. As a potter, I really enjoyed the terracotta vessels (and annoyed my family by sketching them...) The body casts are chilling, especially the toddler and the small children. They got to me in a visceral, mama bear way. There's a lot of information on daily life, including food and cooking, house layout, trade, jewelry, etc. Very worth a visit, though I'm not sure I would take a kid much younger than 7, because it's a fairly traditional museum exhibit-- not a lot of hands on, specifically kid oriented material, but if your kids have studied Pompeii, definitely see it before it closes on September 5th!



The published exhibition catalog really isn't a catalog-- it's very short and light on content, and made me wish photography had been permitted...

1 comment:

jugglingpaynes said...

Really good to know. Someone was asking me about that exhibit recently. We only saw the displays outside of the exhibit when we went to see the Harry Potter exhibition, and I thought it looked interesting. Of course, I'm a geeky ancient history buff. :o)

Peace and Laughter!