Pompeii museum comes back to life after decades

DECADES after suffering bombing and earthquake damage, Pompeii’s museum has been reborn, showing off exquisite finds from excavations of the ancient Roman city.

Officials of the archeological park of the ruins of the city destroyed in AD 79 by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius inaugurated the museum on Monday.

Known as the Antiquarium, the museum gives Pompeii a permanent exhibition space.

Visitors can see sections of frescoed walls from the sprawling city’s unearthed villas, examples of some of the graffiti unearthed by archeologists as well as household objects ranging from silver spoons to a bronze food-warmer, items of the everyday life that was snuffed out by the volcanic explosion.

First opened in about 1873, the Antiquarium was damaged by bombing during World War II and again in 1980, when a deadly earthquake rocked the Naples area.

Since the quake, the museum had been closed, although it was reopened in 2016 as a space for temporary exhibitions.

The Antiquarium’s displays also document Pompeii’s history as a settlement several centuries before it became a flourishing Roman city.

Due to Italy’s COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, currently only visitors from Italy’s Campania region, which includes the Naples area and the Pompeii ruins, can see the museum.

The reopening after so many decades of travail is “a sign of great hope during a very difficult moment,” said Pompeii’s long time director, Massimo Osanna.

He was referring to the harsh blow that the pandemic’s travel restrictions have dealt to tourism, which serves as a major revenue source for Italy.

On display in the last room of the museum are poignant casts made from the remains of some of Pompeii’s residents who tried to flee but were overcome by blasts of volcanic gases or battered by a rain of lava stones.

“I find particularly touching the last room, the one dedicated to the eruption, where on display are the objects deformed by the heat of the eruption, the casts of the victims, the casts of the animals,” Osanna said. “Really, one touches with one’s hand the incredible drama that the AD 79 eruption was.”