Exhibition tells life, death of ancient Roman cities
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E-mail Xinhua, March 29, 2013
A carbonized cradle, frescos of goddesses and animals, body casts of people who met their ends about 2000 years ago.
The British Museum launched an exhibition to explore the Roman family life in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and their destruction by a volcanic explosion on Thursday.
The two cities on the west of Italy were destroyed by an eruption of neighboring Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, and the terrible circumstances of their destruction have fascinated the public since the rediscovery and excavation of the cities in the 18th century.
Paul Roberts is the head of the Roman collections at the museum, and curator of the exhibition "Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum." He told Xinhua, "The main theme behind the exhibition is 'ordinary people'; us, in Roman times."
"It doesn't deal with the gladiators and the emperors. They were wonderful but they were only one percent of the population," he said. But this exhibition, running until Sept. 29 and set in a typical Roman household, aims to tell visitors "how similar the Romans were with us."
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
According to Roberts, this is the first exhibition called "Pompeii and Herculaneum." "Herculaneum is a little sister of Pompeii, but less known," he said.
Talking about Herculaneum, Roberts has a personal story.
"In 1976 I went on a family holiday with my mum and my sister and we visited Pompeii and Herculaneum and the effect was electrifying. I loved both cities, but when I saw Herculaneum I just thought this is incredible and that has always stayed with me and I have always wanted to cover the two of them in an exhibition together," he said.
Pompeii was a larger city, about 15,000 people on the eve of its destruction, while Herculaneum was a coastal city of about 5,000 people. Both were sited at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, which was thought to be dormant.
The eruption, over just two days, wiped out both cities and left them buried beneath meters of volcanic debris -- 4 to 5 meters in Pompeii's case and 24 meters in Herculaneum, which was closer to the volcano.
The different distances from the volcano meant that the cities felt the effects of the explosion in different ways.
In Herculaneum the wave of hot air, called a pyroclastic wave, was hotter still at 400 centigrade and when it hit the city it instantly killed everything, almost always frying away all flesh and carbonizing all wooden items and many fruits.
In Pompeii, the city was deluged with fine stone chippings at the rate of about 15 cm an hour, until a great wave of 300 centigrade air swept down and through the town finally killing off any survivors.
However, with lower temperature, the falling ash "didn't burn the bodies," Roberts explained. "The bodies were like 'cooked' and then the ashes form around the body. When the bodies finally disintegrated, the shapes were left in the ash," he added.
So, in Pompeii, which has been more widely excavated than Herculaneum, many more bodies were discovered in the debris -- about 1150 in Pompeii against 350 in Herculaneum.
But in Herculaneum, wooden items have been retrieved from beneath 24 meters of volcanic debris, because they were preserved as carbonized items. The most poignant of these is a simple child's cradle, one of Roberts' favorite items.
Although it had become charcoal, it still could rock, telling the sad story of the little baby inside, who lost its life when it just started.
"Herculaneum could only be reached by tunnels because it was buried so deep, but there were items like the cradle, wonderful sculptures, and even papyri. But it was difficult to excavate and to visit, whereas at Pompeii you could shovel away the small stones four or five meters deep and under that were houses and streets. So, Pompeii stole the limelight from Herculaneum," said Roberts.
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