Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption
October 22, 2005 – March 26, 2006

“A fearful black cloud was rent by forked and quivering bursts of flame, and parted to reveal great tongues of fire…. Darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a dark room.”

One of nature’s most violent cataclysms was vividly described by Pliny the Younger, who survived the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.  But untold numbers were buried in its volcanic debris, and a vibrant, cosmopolitan society vanished overnight, while other societies sprang up in its place.  Now the exhibition Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption brings this lost world to life.

Casts made from human remains show real people caught as they fled with their most prized possessions.  Past and more recent excavations in the area around Pompeii have revealed hundreds of objects that illuminate the inhabitants’ daily lives: gorgeous room-size frescoes and mosaics, gold coins and precious jewelry, marble and bronze sculptures, and a variety of everyday household objects.  Visitors will visit three sites devastated by the eruption, seeing for themselves how the inhabitants lived and died.  Visitors will learn how volcanoes are born—and how they wield their destructive power.




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