POMPEII, Italy (AP) – Decades after bombing and earthquake damage, the Pompeii Museum has been reborn, displaying exquisite finds from excavations in the ancient Roman city.
Archaeological park officials from the city’s ruins destroyed in 79 AD by the eruption of Vesuvius inaugurated the museum on Monday.
Known as the Antiquarium, the museum offers a permanent exhibition space in Pompeii. Visitors can see sections of frescoed walls of the city’s extensive unearthed villas, examples of some of the graffiti unearthed by archaeologists, as well as household items ranging from silver spoons to a bronze food warmer. , articles of daily life volcanic eruption.
First inaugurated around 1873, the Antiquarium was damaged by bombing during World War II and again in 1980, when a deadly earthquake shook the Naples area. Since the earthquake, the museum had been closed, although it reopened in 2016 as a space for temporary exhibitions.
Samples from the Antiquarium also document the history of Pompeii as a settlement several centuries before it became a thriving Roman city.
Due to travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, currently only visitors to the Italian region of Campania, which includes the Naples area and the ruins of Pompeii, can see the museum.
Pompeii is one of Italy’s main tourist attractions, and when mass tourism finally resumes, tickets to the ruins will also include a visit to the Antiquarium.
The reopening of the museum after so many decades of work is “a sign of great hope at a very difficult time,” said Massimo Osanna, director of Pompeii, who was long gone. He was referring to the severe blow that pandemic travel restrictions have affected to tourism, one of Italy’s main sources of income.
In the last room of the museum are exhibited warm distributions made with the remains of some of the residents of Pompeii who tried to flee but were defeated by explosions of volcanic gases or beaten by a rain of lava stones expelled by Vesuvius.
“I find it especially touching the last room, the one dedicated to the eruption, and where objects deformed by the heat of the eruption, the casts of the victims, the casts of the animals are exposed,” Osanna said. “Really, you touch with your hand the incredible drama that was the eruption of 79 AD.”
Large strips of Pompeii remain to be excavated. Although tourism virtually stopped during the pandemic, archaeologists have continued to work.
Just a month ago, Osanna revealed the discovery of an old fast food restaurant in Pompeii. Completely excavated, the find helped reveal popular dishes among the citizens of the ancient city that were apparently partial to eating out, including what was on the menu the day Pompeii was destroyed.
—-
D’Emilio reported from Rome.