Pompeii Exhibition

The Pompeii Exhibition at the British Museum has, I've read, been attracting an unexpectedly large number of visitors - many more than they had anticipated.   So I just had to go along and see it.

As a member, I didn't have to queue up for a timed entrance; members just show their card and walk straight in to all exhibitions, so you don't have to arrave early to make sure of being able to get in within a reasonable time.

There was a lot to see, and with the crowds it was impossible to move quickly from one exhibit to another.

I hadn't realised before that two cities had been destroyed in the AD 79 eruption - not just the more famous Pompeii, but also Herculaneum on the other side of Versuvius.  Nor was I aware before of the time scale, with Pompeii being showered with debris first,  then a change of wind destroying Herculaneum and finally another change of wind resulting in Pompeii being completed destroyed by the same 70 mile an hour deposition of ash at 400 degrees.   It was that latter that resulted in everything it touched being incinerated instantly.   No-one knows how many people died, as many may have escaped - Pliny the Elder was reported to have died while trying to rescue people by sea - but the estimated populations of the two cities was around 16,000, and only a few hundred bodies have been identified.

It is difficult to envisage the terror that must have accompanied the eruption of a volcano like that after such a long period of inactivity; one can imagine people fleeing the moment they saw the first signs.

The bodies of those showered by the ash were burned instantly, but the voids they left in the ash have been filled with plaster by archeologists, so that we can see exactly the position they were in when they died.   In one instance, the void was filled with resin, but that was too expensive for normal use.

The main aim of the exhibition was to depict life in the cities at the time of their destruction, and in this they succeeded very well.   There were exhibits of the food they ate, carbonised but still recognisable by their shape; gold jewellery, statues, pottery, cooking utensils, furniture which was a charred mass but still recognisable, tiles. and other items which had survived the heat which had meant death to all living things.

The press had made much of the ruder aspects of the exhibition, and certainly a couple of items fell into that category, including one which was hidden away for decades after being found.   But they were a very small part, and were also a reflection of how people lived in those days.

I came away with the feeling of how ephemeral life can be; the people of Pompeii and Herculaneum had been going about their ordinary lives when suddenly everything ended.

But the very suddenness of the disaster means that archeologists today have been able to disover much about the lives of people at that time - not just the rich and famous, but the poor as well.