Pompeii & weekend back
I would like to say I have rediscovered my niche and settled nicely back into the routine, but to be honest, I have pretty much only been relaxing with other foreigners since returning from vacation and haven't made it to work yet. Opening ceremony is tomorrow. I spent most of the weekend watching movies (purchased on the road...ah hem) with friends (the subtitles alone on the copies I got make it entertaining enough!), but today I had a really interesting engagement.
Last spring, Mike and I visited the Natural History Museum in Chicago. Might sound nerdy if you aren't into history, but I assure you, it's worth checking out! Anyways, while we were there, they were showing a temporary exhibit with artifacts from Pompeii, Italy. I was really disappointed when the exhibit was sold out (for the next 2 days), so you can probably understand how surprised and excited I was to learn that the same exhibit had traveled to Japan and was currently showing in Osaka!
If you are not familiar with it, Pompeii is a city in southern Italy that was completely buried in volcanic rock when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD79, preserving the ancient ruins in almost perfect condition for nearly two thousand years. While the majority of the area's residents escaped before the eruption (lava flow and sulphuric gas) ravaged through the town, those that did not were frozen for eternity (or until 200 years ago, when they were first excavated) in fearful positions. Today, the casts of these victims, along with the artifacts and technological lessons of the survivors (like surgical tools) are on display. The frescoes and statues of Greek Gods (Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo) immediately caught my attention as they reminded me a lot of those in Greece (makes sense but did not expect the exactness). Moresoe, the jewlery (worn then with simple-looking robes) reminded me of classic peices that could still be worn with style today. There were a lot of snake and leaf designs in gold and silver, and there seemed to be an abundancy of garnets and emerald among the wealthy at the time. Amazing when you consider this is very close to the time of Christ and I swear many of these (400 plus) peices looked extremely similar to the offering I encountered in Thailand last week.
Basically, the exhibit introduces a framework for building a picture of what life at that time was probably like. Looking at the pictures of the modern town of Pompei (with a large, hollow excavated town in the middle), you can see the volcanous mountains in the background. I know this was a 19-hour eruption, but it is crazy to think that everything these people had, even their lives, was literally buried in time. Just like that.
The exhibit has already traveled Europe and North America, so it would not do much good to recommend going to it, but Wikipedia does have some pretty good info on Pompeii if you want to know more (including a cool computer-generated depiction of what the eruption probably looked like): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
Last spring, Mike and I visited the Natural History Museum in Chicago. Might sound nerdy if you aren't into history, but I assure you, it's worth checking out! Anyways, while we were there, they were showing a temporary exhibit with artifacts from Pompeii, Italy. I was really disappointed when the exhibit was sold out (for the next 2 days), so you can probably understand how surprised and excited I was to learn that the same exhibit had traveled to Japan and was currently showing in Osaka!
If you are not familiar with it, Pompeii is a city in southern Italy that was completely buried in volcanic rock when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD79, preserving the ancient ruins in almost perfect condition for nearly two thousand years. While the majority of the area's residents escaped before the eruption (lava flow and sulphuric gas) ravaged through the town, those that did not were frozen for eternity (or until 200 years ago, when they were first excavated) in fearful positions. Today, the casts of these victims, along with the artifacts and technological lessons of the survivors (like surgical tools) are on display. The frescoes and statues of Greek Gods (Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo) immediately caught my attention as they reminded me a lot of those in Greece (makes sense but did not expect the exactness). Moresoe, the jewlery (worn then with simple-looking robes) reminded me of classic peices that could still be worn with style today. There were a lot of snake and leaf designs in gold and silver, and there seemed to be an abundancy of garnets and emerald among the wealthy at the time. Amazing when you consider this is very close to the time of Christ and I swear many of these (400 plus) peices looked extremely similar to the offering I encountered in Thailand last week.
Basically, the exhibit introduces a framework for building a picture of what life at that time was probably like. Looking at the pictures of the modern town of Pompei (with a large, hollow excavated town in the middle), you can see the volcanous mountains in the background. I know this was a 19-hour eruption, but it is crazy to think that everything these people had, even their lives, was literally buried in time. Just like that.
The exhibit has already traveled Europe and North America, so it would not do much good to recommend going to it, but Wikipedia does have some pretty good info on Pompeii if you want to know more (including a cool computer-generated depiction of what the eruption probably looked like): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 3:58 AM
1 Comments:
At 6:14 PM,
SNAKE HUNTERS said…
Brenda,
Can you tell us...How many Mosques
are there in Tokyo?
We have a Reality Weblog, and our latest post, "Here's Your War" is
worth a quick read. reb
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www.lazyonebenn.blogspot.com
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