Pompeii comes to London: a shocking lesson at TBM--By Lulu

Last Friday, I visited a blockbuster exhibition “Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum” currently features at The British Museum. This exhibition is quite unique, which captures the true horror of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, meanwhile also offers visitors a full and lively picture about the Roman towns.  Overall, fascinating, shocking and horrifying are all accurate descriptions of this exhibition as you travel to the heart of their remarkable time in history.

At the beginning of the exhibition, isolated from the main exhibition, there were three objects. The first is a plaster cast of a dog. Its collar simply told us that his was probably a guard dog abandoned by its owner when Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash. The second and third objects are both from Herculaneum: a wooden table turned into charcoal and a fragment pieces of fresco.

In terms of the main exhibitions, starting with the bustling street, and moving through the intimate spaces of a home, you will be transported into the lives of wealthy Roman nearly 2,000 years, before devastation struck. From the atrium to the garden, bedroom

 and dining room, I spent almost 1 hour around the section of bedroom. The main theme of the bedroom is called love and lust. The villas of the wealthy were frequently decorated with erotic scenes conveying auspicious messages of fertility and wealth. I attached an example displayed in the exhibition of bedroom. A couple are shown making love on a bed covered with luxurious bedding and cushions. The maid seems free to wander around her owner’s bedroom. On one hand, it clearly demonstrates the open and straightforward approach Romans had toward sex. On the other hand, it fully indicated during that period, there was no distinctive class system.  


Notably, apart from the position of slaves, women in Pompeii and Herculaneum, while they had no political rights, but they could own businesses, possess personal wealth and land and have an education.

At the end of the exhibition you are confronted, finally with death. I was totally shocked by the sight of a family: parents and two children-, who died together, huddled in an alcove under the stairs of a house. One child is on the mother’s lap. Mother and father appear to be falling backwards, reeling from the blast of tremendous heat that destroyed them. A child on the right hand side posited as ‘boxer’ pose, tried to fight with the searing heat.

Overall, it is a sombre way to finish the whole exhibition, as I leave and enter into a more peaceful environment- gift shop.