The exhibition "Pompeii
and Europe: 1748-1943" will show the harrowing human agony
wrought by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius that
buried the Roman city in 79 a.d. starting May 26.
Eighty-six casts of victims, all in the final phases of
restoration, will be shown in the joint exhibit at the Pompeii
archeological site and the National Archeological Museum of
Naples.
Teeth protrude from lips stretched from pain. Smoldering,
encrusted skin, protruding skulls and bones, exposed jaws were
all caught in the moment of death, when a glowing, 300C cloud
seared surfaces of the bodies in a single stroke, leaving their
insides soft, and burying them under ash and stones.
Among them is the family of the House of the Golden
Bracelet: a woman with a baby on her lap. Near her is a man and
another child, perhaps two years old.
"Until now they had never been surveyed, out of a sense of
ethics with which these human remains were always treated. No
statues of plaster or bronze, but real people who should be
treated with respect," said Massimo Osanna, the archaeological
superintendent of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, who wanted
an exhibit of just human victims.
The bodies were brought to light in 1863 by the
archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli, who devised a technique for
detecting the casts of the victims of the eruption and
extracting them intact from the excavations.
Restorations also include animals, but the remains of a pig
and a dog will not be part of the exhibit. Osanna explained
that these remains were restored and studied for scientific and
archeological purposes.
Osanna said the restorations are taking place as part of
the Grande Progetto Pompei (Great Pompeii Project) in which
archeologists, restorers, radiologists, engineers and an
anthropologist are studying the genetic and anthropological
profiles of the victims to better identify them and understand
their way of life.
The researchers' findings will be published and made into a
documentary by the Salerno restoration company Atramentum.
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