Exhibition notes for A Day in Pompeii - Museum Victoria

Exhibition Notes for A Day in Pompeii 

http://museumvictoria.com.au/Pompeii 

Exhibition Notes 

ORIGINS 

From small town to multicultural city on the move 

Pompeii is now world-famous, but this important historic site began as a small coastal 

settlement which covered about 10 hectares. As in many modern cities, the shape of the 

older town is still visible within the grid of later construction. By the sixth century BC, 

however, the town had expanded to more than six times its original size and was 

dominated by the Etruscans, though its culture also borrowed freely from the Greek 

cities of the region. Late in the fifth century BC, Pompeii changed hands again, this time 

thanks to Samnite tribesmen from the mountains, and it continued to grow in wealth and 

sophistication as the Romans continued their expansion through the Mediterranean. 

Pompeii was located near Italy’s largest port, Pozzuoli, and Pompeian merchants took 

advantage of this proximity to set up successful businesses and trade routes, particularly 

with Greece. The considerable wealth they brought home spurred a building boom in 

Pompeii in the second century BC, and the cultural influence of Greek art and 

architecture on the villas these wealthy merchants built is obvious. 

ROMAN POMPEII 

A jewel in the crown of the Empire 

In 90 BC, a regional rebellion broke out against the Romans, and a year later the Roman 

Dictator Sulla besieged and captured Pompeii. Reprisals followed, and Pompeii 

transformed itself again, this time into a Roman colony. Latin became the official 

language, and a Roman constitution was imposed on the new colony. 

By the time Augustus became the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC, prominent Pompeians 

had become devotees of Roman fashion and custom. Pompeii had come a long way 

from its humble origins. Now a bustling town, it was home to about 10,000-12,000 

people, with as many again living in the surrounding countryside. As Pompeii’s 

population increased, so did its urbanisation, as older houses were subdivided and 

upper storeys added to make room for the newcomers. The social structure underwent a 

shake-up, as the old ruling aristocracy began to lose ground to a new class of self-made 

men who built larger and showier villas in the Roman style. 

BUSINESSES 

Booming business: Pompeii as a trading centre 

Its fertile and well-drained volcanic soil and mild climate made Pompeii an agricultural 

hub, and her port and geographic position gave her easy access to markets near and 

far. The savvy Pompeians took advantage of these natural assets to make their town, 

and themselves, into a trading power in the Mediterranean. 

The wines of Pompeii were well known in the Roman world (although according to the 

historian Pliny, they produced equally notable hangovers). Wine must have been 

produced in great quantity as archaeologists still discover rustic villas complete with wine 

presses throughout the region, and amphorae bearing trade stamps from Pompeii have 

turned up as far away as Gaul (modern day France), Spain and even Carthage in North 

Africa. 

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Pompeian farmers also specialised in growing vegetables, especially onions, for which 

the town was famous, and olives for oil. Herders raised sheep for their meat and milk as 

well as their wool – another important Pompeian product, which was cleaned, dyed and 

made into felt at numerous fulleries (fullonica) in the city. Pompeii’s coastal location also 

made it a popular producer of garum, a fish sauce which was in great demand as a 

relish; jars containing Pompeian garum have been found as far afield as Gaul. 

Shops of all kinds lined the bustling main streets of Pompeii; even today, they are 

identifiable by the remains of the sliding shutters which merchants used to close their 

storefronts at night. The shopping in Pompeii was world-class for its time: when tallying 

customers’ purchases, shopkeepers used standardised weights which had to be 

periodically checked against the official weights kept in the Forum. The bakery was a 

daily stop for most residents; many bakeries contained mills to grind their own grain, and 

the bread was baked and sold on the same premises. Bars (cauponae) selling snacks 

and drinks were also common; they consisted of an L-shaped counter in which were 

sunk large jars, or dolia, containing foodstuffs. Sometimes they offered a back room for 

customers to eat a meal, drink and perhaps even gamble. A number of inns probably 

offered more intimate entertainment in the form of prostitution, and archaeologists have 

even discovered a large purpose-built brothel, complete with small cubicles and wall 

paintings showing the variety of services offered. 

WATER SUPPLY 

Water, water everywhere: Pompeii’s amazing aqueducts 

In its first several centuries as a town, Pompeii got most of its water from underground 

cisterns, which were fed by rainwater collected from roofs. One of the perks of being part 

of the Roman Republic, however, was having access to all the latest technology, and in 

the early first century AD Pompeii constructed an aqueduct system to bring fresh, clean 

water from the hills 40 kilometres away. This water flowed into a roofed reservoir 

(castellum aquae) before dividing into three large lead pipes which ran under the 

pavements. Six-metre-high towers with lead tanks on top were built at intervals along 

these three pipelines. The 35-metre height difference between the castellum and the 

lowest point in the city meant that the water in the pipes was under pressure, allowing 

smaller pipes to carry water up to the tanks, then back down the towers to supply public 

fountains, houses, shops and facilities such as baths. 

Water pipes usually entered houses at the front door and fed fountains at the side of the 

impluvium or in the peristyle or garden — the early forerunner of the running water in our 

homes today. Any overflow went into a drain which emerged in the road at the base of 

the kerbstones and was used to flush the streets of rubbish before ending up in storm 

drains which carried it neatly to the river. 

Lavatories, while decidedly rare in other parts of the world at this time, were 

commonplace in sophisticated Pompeii, and often occupied a small room off the kitchen. 

In these hygienic marvels, a wooden seat was built over a lavatory pit, which, when 

flushed with a bucket of water, discharged into a cesspit near the house or under the 

street. 

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PUBLIC BATHS 

Leisure time in cosmopolitan Pompeii 

Bathing in Pompeii was a public activity, not a private one, and the public baths were 

important social meeting places. They were so important, in fact, that Pompeii (which 

had only 12,000 residents) boasted three major bathing complexes: the Stabian baths, 

which were the oldest; the Forum baths, built after 80 BC; and the Suburban baths, built 

in the early first century AD. A fourth, the Central baths, was under construction, but was 

still incomplete at the time of the 79 AD eruption. 

At the baths, men and women had separate areas; if there were no separate facilities, 

women bathed in the morning and men in the afternoon. In addition to the main bathing 

block, which had facilities for hot, warm and cold bathing, there was usually an adjoining 

gymnasium for exercise. After the aqueduct system was built and a plentiful water 

supply was assured, an open-air swimming pool was even added to the Stabian baths. 

The procedure most Pompeians followed was to undress in the apodyterium, oil their 

bodies and then exercise in the gymnasium. After exercising, oil and sweat was scraped 

off with a curved tool called a strigil, then followed up with a series of baths, starting in 

the hottest pool and working their way via the warm pool to end with a bracing dip in the 

cold pool. Furnaces behind the hot rooms supplied the heat for the hot baths; it 

circulated under the hollow floors and rose up through cavities in the walls, finally 

escaping by means of chimneys in the vault. 

PRIVATE RESIDENCES 

What does a 2,000-year-old house look like, anyway? 

In some ways, Pompeian houses were very different to those we live in today. For one 

thing, in Pompeii, all the living rooms of the house faced inward. Instead of having a front 

garden or even a gate, the front door opened directly onto the pavement, and the rooms 

to either side of the door were usually either utility rooms or a shopfront. From the front 

door, a passage led back to the largest room in the house, the atrium, which was lit by a 

rectangular aperture (compluvium) in the middle of its high, wooden roof. Rainwater fell 

through this open skylight into a rectangular basin (impluvium) in the floor beneath, and 

ran into a storage cistern under the floor — an arrangement similar to our modern water 

tanks, though almost certainly more attractive! Private rooms, which often contained 

couches, were situated to either side of the atrium, and at the far end lay the three most 

important rooms: the outer triclinia, or dining rooms, and the central tablinum, a formal 

reception room used by the master of the house for business and greeting guests. 

The doors to the house were thrown open at an early hour to admit the family 

dependents (clientes) who had been waiting patiently on the benches beside the front 

door. 

Pompeian architecture was clearly more homogeneous than our modern houses today; 

most, if not all, of the private dwellings found in the city conform to this basic Roman 

layout. However, the wealthier citizens of Pompeii were in many ways as attuned to style 

and fashion as we are today, and newer houses were built to conform to the latest 

trends. 

The so-called First Pompeian Style used the formal, austere atrium as a showplace to 

impress visitors with grand decorations of moulded plaster painted to imitate polychrome 

marble blocks. All manner of business was conducted in the atrium, so it was designed 

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to display the family’s wealth, piety and lineage. Beyond the formal atrium lay the 

peristyle — a garden surrounded by colonnades which was a less formal, more richly 

decorated part of the house, a place to relax or dine. Many houses were built in this style 

between the third and second centuries BC, a time when the aristocracy still held sway. 

After the establishment of the Roman military colony in 80 BC, the illusionistic Second 

Style, which opened up the walls with columns and architectural vistas, became popular. 

Towards the end of the first century BC, illusion was abandoned and the delicate and 

exquisite Third Style was in vogue. 

In the first century AD, Pompeians began to build upper storeys onto buildings and carve 

small apartments out of larger houses. This may have been an attempt to cope with a 

growing population, to house the families of emancipated slaves, or simply to create 

rooms for rent. Decoration in the atrium and the surrounding rooms also became more 

showy, perhaps when older houses came into the hands of self-made men who had no 

ancestry to boast of. After the aqueduct was built, fashionable homeowners also 

constructed elaborate garden areas, as found in the House of D. Octavius Quartio, 

which boasts fountains, watercourses, pavilions and formal plantings extending the 

length of its vast garden. In smaller houses where space was limited, fantasy 

landscapes were painted on blank walls to open up imaginary vistas and give an 

impression of space. 

In the last years of the city, the rich and complex Fourth Style returned to the earlier 

fashion of ‘opening’ walls using illusionistic decoration, but with an even greater 

emphasis on creating a fantasy world. 

FOOD AND DINING 

A moveable feast: Pompeian kitchens and dining 

In today’s houses, the kitchen tends to be a central feature, often used for eating and 

gathering with friends as well as cooking. In contrast, Roman kitchens were small, 

poorly lit rooms, usually tucked away at the back of the house. In most of the kitchens 

excavated at Pompeii, the only permanent feature left is a masonry hearth with a tiled 

top and arched recesses at the bottom for storing fuel. Cooking was done on this open 

hearth, with pots set on iron tripods over burning charcoal or wood. Some houses also 

boasted a small oven, much like a modern woodfired pizza oven, at the corner of the 

bench, with a vent near the stove for the smoke to escape. The only other furnishings in 

the Pompeian kitchen were a basin to hold water for cooking and washing up, and 

sometimes supports for tables to prepare the food. 

Roman kitchen implements were simple, but practical and functional. Texts of the time 

use the word cacabus to mean pans in general, while the fretale or sartago seems to 

have been a bronze or iron frying pan. The pultarius was a saucepan, and the testa or 

clibanus a small portable oven for roasting or baking bread. Iron choppers, knives, 

cleavers and spoons, as well as strainers, ladles and mortars, were used to prepare the 

food, which was served on a large circular platter called a discus. Portable hearths of 

bronze or ceramic could be used in apartments or for a summer meal in the garden, 

and a craticula was a special grid used for barbecues. 

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Roman cuisine was also decidedly simple: food of all sorts was usually boiled, smoked, 

fried or baked and either seasoned with fish sauce (garum) or wine reduced to a thick 

syrup (defrutum) and thickened with starch (amulum). 

Lunch (prandium), taken at midday, was a light meal consisting of meat or fish and fruit 

with perhaps some wine. Guests were not usually invited to prandium. During the hot 

Pompeian summer, this was followed by a siesta (meridiatio). The afternoon was the 

time for bathing, and after the baths (which might take several hours), the Pompeians 

ate their main meal (cena). As in any modern town, it was always possible to eat out at 

an inn (taberna). The menu (tabula lusoria) was displayed outside to entice passersby, 

and in one well-preserved instance, offered an impressive choice of chicken, fish and 

ham. 

Wealthy Pompeians dined in great style, and often had several dining rooms to choose 

from: cold-weather dining rooms faced west to take advantage of the warm afternoon 

sun, and warm-weather rooms faced east or north in order to remain shaded for most of 

the day. Many of the larger houses also had outdoor dining areas with a pergola to 

shade the diners and usually a fountain nearby. Diners wore brightly coloured dinner 

suits called cenatoria and reclined on couches. The classical Roman dining 

arrangement consisted of three large couches (the summus, medius and imus), each of 

which seated three people. The host sat at the end of the leftmost couch (imus) and the 

guest of honour sat at the left of the middle couch (medius). The food was served in 

bite-sized pieces, and diners ate from small plates placed on a ledge in front of them, 

using spoons or their fingers. The first course (gustatio) usually included eggs, lettuce, 

cheese and olives. The main course (primae mensae) consisted of fish or meat such as 

ham, poultry or kid. The last course (mensae secundae) was usually fruit. On special 

occasions, the wealthy would serve spectacular dishes like ‘Trojan Pig’, which when 

split open revealed a hidden filling of sausages and black pudding. Oysters were a 

popular addition to the menu, and an enterprising Roman, Sergius Orata, pioneered 

oyster farming in the Lucrine Lake in about 100 BC. 

ENTERTAINMENT 

Fight club: the importance of the amphitheatre 

Aside from the daily bathing ritual, the spectacles of the amphitheatre were the most 

popular form of entertainment in Pompeii. Pompeii’s amphitheatre was built sometime 

after 80 BC, making it the oldest known example of its kind in the Roman world. The 

contests Pompeians enjoyed were ultra-violent even by today’s standards, ranging from 

gladiator versus gladiator combat to fights that pitted men against various dangerous 

animals. 

Spectacles took place in the arena of the amphitheatre and often lasted two or three 

days. They were highly publicised and well attended, not only by the citizens of Pompeii 

but also by people from neighbouring towns, and sometimes became just as rowdy as 

modern sporting events. In 59 AD a riot broke out in the amphitheatre between 

Pompeian fans and the people of nearby Nuceria, and as a result the amphitheatre was 

closed for ten years – a hefty penalty for the crime. The riot is celebrated in a graffito 

found on the facade of the House of the Dioscuri, which portrays a triumphant gladiator 

carrying a palm of victory and saying, "Campanians, you perished with the Nucerians in 

our victory." (The region surrounding Mount Vesuvius was called Campania). Other 

Pompeian graffiti have been found depicting gladiatorial contests and listing the victories 

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of favourite gladiators. These gladiators were often foreign slaves, and both men and 

women idolised them; one graffito reads: "Celadus the Thracian makes all the girls sigh." 

Theatrical performances were another, gentler form of popular entertainment. Pompeii’s 

theatre was an old one, built in the second century BC in the Greek style and then 

enlarged and modernised in the Augustan period to make it more like a Roman theatre. 

Comedies and rustic farces were performed there, as well as mimed re-enactments of 

mythological scenes. The dramas of ancient Greece must also have been popular, 

judging from the wall paintings depicting the famous Greek playwright Menander. A 

small roofed odeum, or concert hall, was built next to the theatre in about 75 BC to 

provide an additional venue for musical entertainment. 

FASHION 

High fashion and heavenly adornment, Roman-style 

Pompeii was a hub of trade and travel, and its wealthier residents were knowledgeable 

about all the latest fashion and beauty trends from Rome and beyond. The standard 

garment for women throughout the Roman Empire was the stola, a long pleated dress 

that was draped around the body and pinned together with brooches (fibulae). The style 

of this garment was traditional and didn’t vary much, which made make-up and 

hairstyling even more important as a way to express a woman’s beauty and individuality. 

The Roman beauty ideal was a white face, bright red lips and very dark eyes. To 

achieve this look, women used foundation creams and face powder made from white 

lead or powdered chalk and animal fat. Lipstick was made from ochre or molluscs, and 

eyeliner from soot or antimony powder. Fashionable women washed in water perfumed 

with cinnamon and balsam, and often used ass’s milk on the skin to prevent wrinkles. 

Other oil-based scents were derived from spices and herbs like cardamom, saffron, 

lavender, rose and orange, and were stored in small, tightly-stoppered glass bottles. 

Mirrors made from highly polished bronze or silver were, of course, essential items in the 

wealthy woman’s beauty kit. 

The blond hair of Celtic women (usually slaves) was particularly prized for making wigs, 

but when this was not available, many women dyed their hair blonde and used hairnets 

of fine gold thread and hairpins of bone to hold their often elaborate hairstyles in place. 

Fashions in hairdressing changed rapidly, much as they do today. In Pompeii’s early 

years, women favoured simple chignons or buns at the back of the head, or plaits tied 

back in a band, but in the last years of Pompeii built-up hairstyles became popular. 

These were very complex and often required several slaves working at the same time, 

manipulating hairpieces and false curls to produce a towering head of hair. 

Both men and women wore rings for adornment, which could be made from plain gold, 

bronze, copper or silver. More elaborate jewellery featured pearls or gemstones such as 

cornelian, lapis lazuli or onyx, and the most detailed pieces featured delicately carved 

cameo or intaglio stones. Hoop earrings and gold bracelets with a coiling snake design 

were especially popular. 

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MEDICINE 

Thoroughly modern medicine 

The wealthier citizens of Pompeii had access to surprisingly sophisticated medical care. 

In fact, the Romans had begun learning about medicine centuries earlier, around the end 

of the third century BC, when the first Greek doctor came to Rome. 

At first, the ‘practice’ of medicine was just that: methods were based on trial and error, 

and anyone could call himself a doctor. Many medical practitioners were slaves, and as 

a result the profession did not enjoy a high reputation. However, these experimental 

doctors’ methods improved over the years, as successful treatments were noted and 

passed on. Roman doctors began to study the works of Hippocrates (the Greek 

physician known as the ‘father of medicine’) and by the time of Augustus the Romans 

were writing their own medical texts. 

Roman doctors used a great variety of medicinal plants, including morphine extracted 

from opium poppies to take away pain. They made prostheses to replace lost limbs, set 

broken bones and performed many kinds of surgery. One popular procedure was 

trephination – drilling holes in the patient’s skull to relieve pressure. Even cosmetic 

surgery was performed for the wealthy. 

Roman surgical instruments were strikingly similar to modern ones, and used for many 

of the same purposes: steel or bronze scalpels to make incisions, blunt hooks as probes 

for dissection, sharp hooks to lift pieces of tissue, forceps to extract small pieces of 

bone, and bone saws for the heavy work of performing amputations. These pioneering 

surgeons also used catheters to remove blockages in the urinary tract and bleeding cups 

to remove blood in an attempt to rid the body of disease. An impressive set of 40 

surgical instruments was found in the aptly named House of the Surgeon at Pompeii. 

Although hygiene was improperly understood in Roman times, the extensive aqueduct 

systems delivered fresh water to millions and helped prevent water-borne diseases, as 

did the sophisticated toilet and sewerage systems which carried wastes away from 

densely populated areas. (Ironically, the lead pipes which carried the water posed their 

own health threat, a fact which was known to the Romans.) They may have had no cure 

for lead poisoning, but they were clearly aware that good food and exercise were 

important in maintaining a healthy body. In fact, the Roman medical system was so 

advanced that it remained unsurpassed until the ninteenth century, and the snake (the 

symbol of Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine) is associated with the medical 

profession to this day. 

RELIGION 

Cult following: the importance of the gods in daily life 

The Pompeians worshipped many gods, primarily Graeco-Roman deities such as Jupiter 

(the Greek Zeus), Juno (Hera), Minerva (Athena) and Apollo. The oldest temple in 

Pompeii, which dates to the sixth century BC, may have been a temple of Minerva. A 

temple of Apollo stands next to the Forum and a temple of Jupiter at its north end, both 

built in the second century BC. In about 80 BC, a temple of Venus was built on high 

ground in the southwest corner of the city overlooking the sea, from which mythology 

tells us the goddess was born. 

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Roman temples were designed to house cult statues of the god or goddess to which 

they were dedicated; unlike most churches today, they were not usually entered by the 

worshippers. Instead, priests venerated the gods with processions and sacrifices on the 

altar, which stood in front of the temple. The Romans believed it was crucial to perform 

these important rituals correctly, and the only way to know whether the god had been 

appeased was by divination, which meant examining the livers of sacrificial animals and 

the direction in which birds flew or how they ate in order to interpret the god’s mood and 

intentions. 

In addition to the public temples, most houses had a small shrine or lararium, where 

daily ceremonials and rituals were performed to appease the lares and penates who 

guarded the house. The lares (household gods) are usually depicted on these shrines 

dressed in short tunics and carrying drinking horns and wine buckets. 

As Rome’s empire spread, several new religions spread to Pompeii from overseas. The 

Egyptian cult of Isis was popular in Pompeii before the Roman colony was established in 

80 BC, and appealed especially to the poor and oppressed, thanks to its story of death 

and resurrection and the promise of immortality. In the mythology, Osiris, the husband of 

Isis, is killed, and the tears of his grieving wife cause the Nile to flood; however, her 

magical skills enable her to bring Osiris back to life. When it was first discovered, the 

Temple of Isis at Pompeii was in exceptionally fine condition, with most of the temple 

vessels and fittings still in place. At the time of the eruption, the priests had tried to save 

the treasures of the temple, and the body of one of them was found next to a bag of gold 

near the Via dell’Abbondanza, (Street of Abundance). 

The Bacchic cult also became highly popular in this vineyard-surrounded city, perhaps 

because it advocated extensive drinking of wine, which was thought to induce religious 

ecstasy. One famous room in the Villa of the Mysteries depicts the god Bacchus 

initiating members into his secret society. 

Even a brand-new religion called Christianity found its way to Pompeii, perhaps along 

with the influx of Jewish slaves to Italy after Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD. At least 

some Bible stories seem to have been familiar to Pompeians; one inscription mentions 

Sodom and Gomorrah, and a painting in the House of the Physician shows a parody of 

the Judgment of Solomon with the characters depicted as dwarfs. A number of Semitic 

names have also been found in other inscriptions at Pompeii, including Jeshua, Jonas, 

‘Maria, a textile worker, and Martha, a slave’. Christianity was still young when Pompeii 

was destroyed, but St Paul wrote during his voyage from Malta to Rome in 62 AD, “… on 

the second day we came to Puteoli. There we found brethren, and were invited to stay 

with them for seven days.” (Acts, 28:14). Puteoli is close to Pompeii, so it is possible that 

some Pompeians had also converted to Christianity, but no proof of this has yet been 

discovered. 

BURIAL PRACTICES 

The journey to eternity 

The roads leading out of Pompeii are lined with tombs, not for any ominous reason, but 

because burial within the city walls was not permitted. The best-known tombs line the 

road to Herculaneum. Before the Roman colony was established, Pompeians buried 

their dead in simple stone or brick cists (caskets or containers), but after 80 BC 

cremation became the norm and wealthier Pompeians started to build more monumental 

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tombs, sometimes including an upper storey that featured statues of the deceased 

between columns. One particularly elaborate tomb built for a woman named Naevoleia 

Tyche boasts relief sculptures showing the good works performed by her husband, a 

freedman, as well as a ship representing trade, the source of her wealth. Another tomb 

features a wall-painting showing the family silver. Some of the tombs rest within walled 

enclosures, and one unusual type of burial is marked by a tombstone with a plain 

circular top resembling a human head. In the early first century BC a number of 

commemorative curved stone benches were also built in these cemeteries, but 

archaeologists are not sure whether these were actual burial places or cenotaphs 

erected to honour dead who lie elsewhere. 

VESUVIUS ERUPTS 

The end of an era 

In 62 AD, a severe earthquake caused great devastation in Pompeii. This should have 

served as a warning of the disaster to come, but it went unheeded by the locals, who 

were accustomed to feeling the earth tremble and considered it the work of the gods. 

Instead, the city optimistically began to rebuild, and this work was still underway when 

Vesuvius erupted in spectacular fashion on 24 August 79 AD. The massive explosion 

sent a column of hot ash thousands of metres into the air, and triggered pyroclastic flows 

which rampaged down the mountainside at over 200 kilometres an hour, destroying 

everything in their path. Soon, what had been a vibrant city was completely buried under 

up to 10 metres of volcanic ash. 

Despite the scale of the destruction, however, many of Pompeii’s residents managed to 

escape in the first hours of the eruption: overall, fewer than 2,000 people died. In the 

months that followed, the Emperor Titus offered aid to the devastated region, and 

survivors returned to the wasteland that had been their home. Parts of buildings still 

protruded through the ash, and the refugees used these to pinpoint landmarks and dig 

down to recover their belongings or simply to plunder what remained. 

BODY CASTS 

Frozen in time: Pompeii’s unique legacy 

In 1860, the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli noticed that long-decomposed 

organic material had left voids in the volcanic ash which covered Pompeii, and devised a 

way to fill them with plaster. This technique produced startlingly realistic casts of human 

beings and animals frozen in their death agonies, which continue to disturb and intrigue 

us today. Some of the most poignant examples are an embracing couple and a writhing 

dog, chained and unable to escape — true snapshots of mortality, miraculously 

preserved intact for nearly 2,000 years. 

In 1984, archaeologists developed a new technique which used epoxy resin instead of 

plaster. The transparent resin allows scientists to see the skeleton and teeth of the 

figure, and in the case of a woman at Oplontis, even the jewellery she was wearing is 

visible. These figures are both moving and powerful, unwilling messengers from the 

distant past who in their deaths have provided us with a unique window on their ancient 

lives. 

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Exhibition notes for A Day in Pompeii - Museum Victoria

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