Pompeii-The Exhibit at MFA Houston

On August 24, 79 A.D. the world´s most famous volcano, Vesuvius, erupted with pyroclastic fury, burying the city of Pompeii in a mountain of hardened ash. In the only eye witness account, the Roman Historian Pliny the Younger, described the event:

"A fearful black cloud was rent by forked and quivering bursts of flame, and parted to reveal great tongues of fire. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men… Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness."

Fortunately for us, the darkness proved not to be eternal. In the late 1500s workers digging a canal uncovered slabs of marble and painted fresco walls. In the 1600s more ruins were unearthed. In 1763 an inscription was found that identified the town as the Pompeii written about by Pliny. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius preserved an unprecedented number of works of art and objects from daily life, as well as remains of about two thousand residents who had not fled at the first signs of trouble.

The above text is from the program of the Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption currently an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston. The exhibit closes June 22 so Mishaelle, Haden and I went down to the museum district last Friday to see it. I've never been disappointed when I made whatever arrangements necessary to have the time for an exhibit at MFAH and this occasion was no different.

My earliest memory of the history of the Pompeii eruption came in grade school via the Weekly Reader. I don't remember much more from that early introduction other than being horrified and, at the same time mesmerized by the whole event. It was much later that I was again exposed to the information and appreciated the loss of life and the historical opportunity the study of the sites offered.

The exhibit at the MFAH consists of casts of the cavities formed when the ash covered the victims. When the bodies rotted away, the pockets were left. From the time of the first discovery, the techniques for casting these pockets and the materials used became more sophisticated. The first display on entering the exhibition is a grouping of several dozen victims who were huddled in a boat shelter waiting evacuation from the city. The casting is so realistic as to shock the visitor with the desperation the victims must have experienced.

The remainder of the exhibit consists of other castings, artifacts, including gold and silver jewelry, precious household items and other objects the people took with them when they fled the eruption.

The exhibition is made more enjoyable by the audio tour aids enabling visitors to enter a number corresponding to a particular display into a small digital player to hear about that display. I recommend it.