Today, Sunday, Sept. 4th, my wife and I took in the Pompeii exhibit in NYC at the Discovery Center in Times Square. We received gift certificats for tickets from her sister for her birthday in June and waited until now to go. This week-end was the last week-end of it. You have to put in a time you will be there for it so they can let you in at your specific time. We put in for 2:30 in the afternoon. To save on the hustle and bustle and nerve wracking of traffic in the big city and enormous parking fees and bridge tolls, we take mass transit by train and subway from our town . We arrived at the Discovery Center in Times Square at 2 p.m. and were astounded at what we saw. There were three lines extending halfway down the block. One was for ticket holders only for Pompeii that was just ending this week-end , another was for ticket holders only for a Harry Potter exhibit that was also just ending that week-end and a third was for ticket buyers for that day. We also discovered there were hundreds of others who also had tickets for 2:30. I had to keep asking the security personell to make sure we were on the right line and for the right time. The security people were very patient and helpful and I was amazed that no one panicked. We were getting very frustrated. Some people in front of us had tickets for 3:30 and they were asked to go to the end of the line. After waiting a little over an hour we didn't get in until 3:30 in the afternoon.
Once you got inside you are ushered onto other lines that eventually direct you to the exhibit itself. The lines went straight thru the entire exhibit so it made it less interesting to us. There were also people who had listening devices you could rent that tell you about each piece. They held up the line too so we just walked around them.
Pompeii was a town that existed in the first century A.D. that was a prosperous Roman town and commercial center consisting of 20,000 people from all social classes and their slaves. It was located at the base of a volcano called Mt. Vesuvious which erupted and destroyed the entire town.
The exhibit contains many beautiful artifacts such as tile paintings from the walls, elaborate marble furniture with animal head figures, various bowls, jewelry, utensils, ,statues of gods they worshipped and other interesting artifacts that have been uncovered over the years.
The highlite of the exhibit is the amazing body casts of people and animals that have been discovered and preserved so you can see how they actually were at that precise moment. When entering this room titled "Covered in Ash' you are ushered into a small room and watch an interesting interactive film of Vesuvius erupting. You see the town early in the morning with the time in the upper right hand corner. As the day progresses and the time changes you see and hear Vesuvius erupting until fire and Ash come raining down on the town and bellowing smoke comes towards you filling up the screen to the sounds of roaring volcano eruptions and you feel the floor shake beneath you as actual smoke fills up the room you are in giving you a somewhat feeling of what it was like. The doors open and you are standing before the room containing all the body casts which is in a dark room with the casts dimly lit and a description in the corner of each pedestal they are on.
The casts consist of people and animals who tried to flee or couldn't and were covered by lava and ash. Eventually the bones desintegrated, but left vacant cavities in the now hardend ash. In 1860 an archeologist in Pompeii named Guiseppe Fiorelli was the first to pour plaster into these cavities. Once the plaster hardened and the outer shell chipped away, Fiorelli discovered the haunting images of people and animals at the very moment of death which is what is on display here. You are not permitted to take pictures in this exhibit, but I am including a picture below of one I found online.
One cast is of a man sitting with his back to the wall and knees drawn up with his hands over his mouth. Another is of a man and a woman found in a home the man reaching out to the woman as if to comfort her. Another one is of a slave or prisoner who had markings around his ankles showing ankle chains that were worn, a dozen skeletons that were found in one house and a woman(pictured below) whose legs are bare and the imprints of her clothes are preserved on the upper part of her back, hips and stomach and on her left arm. It appears she tried to keep her mouth and nose clear by pulling her tunic over her face and was found possibly trying to make her way to the harbor to escape. A sad one that bothered my wife and would any dog lover is one of a dog wearing his bronze studded collar that was left chained and suffocated.
Over all it is a fascinating exhibit about life and death in Vesuvious, but would have been better for us without the crowds.
A cast of a woman that is part of the exhibit, "Pompeii the Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius."
Once you got inside you are ushered onto other lines that eventually direct you to the exhibit itself. The lines went straight thru the entire exhibit so it made it less interesting to us. There were also people who had listening devices you could rent that tell you about each piece. They held up the line too so we just walked around them.
Pompeii was a town that existed in the first century A.D. that was a prosperous Roman town and commercial center consisting of 20,000 people from all social classes and their slaves. It was located at the base of a volcano called Mt. Vesuvious which erupted and destroyed the entire town.
The exhibit contains many beautiful artifacts such as tile paintings from the walls, elaborate marble furniture with animal head figures, various bowls, jewelry, utensils, ,statues of gods they worshipped and other interesting artifacts that have been uncovered over the years.
The highlite of the exhibit is the amazing body casts of people and animals that have been discovered and preserved so you can see how they actually were at that precise moment. When entering this room titled "Covered in Ash' you are ushered into a small room and watch an interesting interactive film of Vesuvius erupting. You see the town early in the morning with the time in the upper right hand corner. As the day progresses and the time changes you see and hear Vesuvius erupting until fire and Ash come raining down on the town and bellowing smoke comes towards you filling up the screen to the sounds of roaring volcano eruptions and you feel the floor shake beneath you as actual smoke fills up the room you are in giving you a somewhat feeling of what it was like. The doors open and you are standing before the room containing all the body casts which is in a dark room with the casts dimly lit and a description in the corner of each pedestal they are on.
The casts consist of people and animals who tried to flee or couldn't and were covered by lava and ash. Eventually the bones desintegrated, but left vacant cavities in the now hardend ash. In 1860 an archeologist in Pompeii named Guiseppe Fiorelli was the first to pour plaster into these cavities. Once the plaster hardened and the outer shell chipped away, Fiorelli discovered the haunting images of people and animals at the very moment of death which is what is on display here. You are not permitted to take pictures in this exhibit, but I am including a picture below of one I found online.
One cast is of a man sitting with his back to the wall and knees drawn up with his hands over his mouth. Another is of a man and a woman found in a home the man reaching out to the woman as if to comfort her. Another one is of a slave or prisoner who had markings around his ankles showing ankle chains that were worn, a dozen skeletons that were found in one house and a woman(pictured below) whose legs are bare and the imprints of her clothes are preserved on the upper part of her back, hips and stomach and on her left arm. It appears she tried to keep her mouth and nose clear by pulling her tunic over her face and was found possibly trying to make her way to the harbor to escape. A sad one that bothered my wife and would any dog lover is one of a dog wearing his bronze studded collar that was left chained and suffocated.
Over all it is a fascinating exhibit about life and death in Vesuvious, but would have been better for us without the crowds.
A cast of a woman that is part of the exhibit, "Pompeii the Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius."
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