YCGL - Sunday, October 8, 2023 - Naples - Pompeii Lost and Found

Since the 6th grade, I've wanted to see Pompeii.  Mrs. H...h was my 6th grade English Block teacher.  My guess in her mid-forties.  Red hair, kind of short and pudgy.  Divorced and had a Yemanese man living with her who was an importer of African goods.  To this day, I can smell her perspiration as she would walk between us in class.  But, there was something about her that made me want to learn from her.  Come on, how many 6th grade boys remember their block studies and their teacher.  But Mrs. H...h taught Egypt, Greece  and Rome.  

I've always been an Egyptologist, I took a senior level Egyptian Hieroglyphics as an elective my senior year at Boulder, jumped at the chance to work in Egypt one summer while I was in grad school, have a two foot wide section of Egypt books on my shelf, gave a lecture on ancient and modern Egypt to Mrs. Castor's English class (and got a very good bottle of wine for it, thanks Bob!).  Even now, I have a course on hieroglyphics on the Great Courses channel.

I read Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology book in junior high school (but her Roman Mythology was too redundant).  

And Miz H...H's section on Pompeii was memorable, even her little innuendos about frescos and objects we kinda weren't supposed to know about because they were vibrant and active people.  ;) 

But, after two days of being sick, a friend suggested that I should have a Covid test.  Even though I was 90% sure it was a cold, and I had quit hacking by the third day, I decided it was the right thing to do. get  The tour to Pompeii was for eight people, and I wouldn't want the other seven to get Covid if I had it.  So I decided to get tested.  But the earliest I could get into the infirmary was at 8:00 and that's when the tour was to meet at the dock.  So, hard as it was, I wrote them and said that I would be too late and to go ahead without me.  

I tested negative.  

I could have gone with no consequences....but it wouldn't have been right.  So, time to make lemonade.  My good friend, Rick Steves, says 

Naples' Archaeological Museum is one of the world's great museums of ancient art and decorations from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the two ancient burgs that were buried in ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.  For lovers of antiquity, this museum alone makes Naples a worthwhile stop.  When Pompeii was excavated in the late 1700's, Naples' Bourbon king bellowed, "Bring me the best of what you find."  The finest art and artifacts ended up here, leaving the ancient sites themselves barren (though still impressive).  It's here at the Archaeological Museum that you can get up close and personal with the ancient world.

So, if you can't go to Pompeii, go see what was there.  Google Map showed the walk out of the ship terminal to the subway stop (which was about a quarter mile underground) to the L1 train, 3 stops later yo the Museo stop, and 500 feet to the entrance of the museum.   And this place is huge, like the Metropolitan Museum in NYC huge.  It's two floors with a partial mezzanine, the first floor being Roman (as in Rome) and Egyptian art and the second floor being Pompeii, Herculaneum and Greek art.  Sadly, the mezzanine was closed.  It has more Greek art and the Secret Room.  

When you enter, you walk through the grand atrium to the back where you are greeted by the Fernese Hercules.  When you turn right, you are going into the collection of Alessandro Farnese, aka Pope Paul III.  He had the Baths of Caracalla excavated for the building stone for his Roman palace.  Oh, yeah, and keep the statues that you dig up also.  

Next came rooms and hallways of busts.  Busts of philosophers, writers, politicians, a virtual who's who of ancient Greek and Roman people excavted from a number of different places.  

There are two more just like this down the hall.

Then I remembered, there were workshops that carved bodies and busts for clients who could then have a head carved for them that they could stick on to the body.  Effective cost savings.

For example,

Emperor Marcellinus here has a head which looks like he's been garroted sitting on a bust.

Many look like this.  If they don't, it is actually a whole sculpture done or good makeup.

The next set of pictures are from a bath of Caracalla.  This isn't a typical bath, the original area was 335m by 337m.  That's over 3 football fields squared.  I think I would need a bath just walking to it.  He was the Roman emperor during Russell Crowe's "Gladiator" period.  The statues here are heroic and larger than life. For example,

Minerva

The Farnese Lar is a Genius, a local protector god.  He may protect a family, the Roman people, the government and places, institutions and associations.  I was impressed by the footware.  It turns out, it is one of the defining qualities of a Genius.  

Two famous statues are of Minerva and Hercules at Rest after his ninth or tenth quest.

In the same vein as the tired Hercules is Atlas.  Some people just have a bad day.

Another sculpture we'll see referenced later is this one.  It is over 13 feet tall and yes, that is some bull!  It is the Toro Farnese and it was originally carved out of a single piece of marble.

King Lycus was bewitched by Dirce.  He abandoned his pregnant wife, Antiope.  She later gave birth to twin sons.  When they grew up, they killed their dad and tied Dirce to the horns of a bull to be bashed against a mountain.  In the back, Antiope calmly watches this justice with satisfaction.  (paraphrased from Rick Steves).

As he says, imagine if this was properly lighted and not against a white background.

Around most of these walls are shadowboxes.  They must have held something, but they are all empty now.

  

Needless to say, there are hundreds of Roman statues and busts on the first floor.  Pompeii is higher up.

One of the things I have read about over the years is the Pompeiian mosaics, both on the floors and on the walls.  And they are displayed on the mezzanine level.  Which is currently closed.  Aargh.  One of the best known pieces is the Battle of Alexander.  There was a display of it in this incredible hall.  Alexander's mosaic is familiar, but it is only a piece of a much larger floor mosaic from the "House of the Fawn".  Look at the shading and the density of the mosaic tiles.

There are 1.5 million mosaic tiles and the overall size is 9 ft by 17 ft.  I guess its been in restoration since 2021.  I would have liked to have seen it.

And the Secret Room is also closed.

One of the first things you see is the model of Pompeii that was made in 1877 showing the extend of the excavation at that time.  It is a horizontal model with elevation relief and is about 24 ft by 21 ft.

A detail showing the detail of the model.

They have made a video of the model in which they have taking portions of the ruined buildings and used animation to show what the building would have looked like.

The original model of the Temple of Zeus                   The animation building up the temple           

The final animation showing what the temple would have looked like.  It also shows the area around which still looks like the model.

There is another model on the wall showing the excavation as of 2012.  The area is about doubled.

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And now, I'm going to cop out for a while.  I took A LOT of pictures of panels and descriptions which I could carefully lay out for you, which would have no context for you at all.  So, I'm just going to post a number of panels without descriptions just so you can see the variety and the quality of artwork  that they represent.  

              Aros and Aphrodite                                                    Rooms filled like this on both sides

Remember the 13 foot high statue of Dirce being tied to the bull?  Here it is in Pompeiian fresco.  You've got the two twin brothers, and Antiope watching.  

OK, by this point, you have an idea of the magnitude and scope of this museum.  I was there four hours and this is maybe 50% of the collection, no, less, because in many rooms, I just looked at one side of the room and not the other.  

But something interesting struck me as I was looking at the Pompeii model.  I noticed that the curtains in the windows were blowing.  You have this incredible wealth of unique frescos and other artwork, and it's being exposed to the local temperature and humidity.  And worse.  I stepped out of one of the windows and saw this....

All this artwork is being exposed to the pollution of the city.  I hope they can fix this in the near future.  

Quick story.  I've figured out that it is smart for me to start to head back to the ship an hour and a half before sailing.  Even if it doesn't take near that long.  I got there in about 30 minutes.  The ship was sailing at 5:30, so I started leaving the museum at 4:00.  I got to the subway station to go back, I had my 1.2 Euros in my hand for the ticket machine, and it was broken.  As were the other 5 in the station. Probably just out of tickets.  But, what am I going to do.  Well, I had enough time to catch a cab or an Uber.  As I walked around the gates, I saw a machine that was a direct link to the turnstile.  You could pop your card, it reads it and opens the gate.  Only it didn't work either.  I saw another, and on the third try, it opened the turnstile.  And as I walked through, I saw that the turnstile next to the (closed) ticket office was open.  I guess if the machines don't work, someone from Metro opens a turnstile and everyone can just walk through.  I didn't know, it's not a big deal in Laramie....

Oh yeah, the Secret Room.  Everyone knows where it is.  One of the things Pompeii was known for was it's erotica.  Apparently a lot of it.  When the exhibit was first opened in the 1840's, some of this was on display.  The Bourbon Duke who ruled the city required the museum to remove all the erotica and put it in a locked room.  You could only enter with a letter from the Duke.  Of course, that meant only the rich and the clergy could go in.  As rulers changed, so did the restrictions, sometimes more liberal, sometimes more restrictive.  As of 2000, there is a single room, the Secret Room that is open to everyone.  Except, it's closed.  Oh well, there's always the internet......

And literally, as we sailed out of the harbor last night, this is what I saw.  No, it's not Vesuvius, But it will have to work for me.  Sure was pretty.  "As the sun sinks slowly in the Northwest....."