Buried under ash in the catastrophic eruption of 79 AD, Pompeii (and several other Italian towns) were only uncovered to modern man in the 18th century, and more fully excavated and documented in the last century and a half. By virtue of its fame as one of the few standing, albeit ossified towns of the Roman empire, it soon became the classical world's greatest means of popularisation. Now, its treasures and secrets have travelled half-way round the world, to the hub-city of Singapore.
The National Museum, one of the island's last remaining vestiges of British colonial power, has been open of late to exhibits of a classical, archaeological flavour, with a show on Egypt and the Pharoahs having gone on earlier this year. The addition of this latest on Pompeii, no doubt confirms this, and should prove a fine item on the institution's resume.
The exhibition is finely and meticulously designed. Visitors are first greeted to the harrowing sight of plaster casts of the bodies of those trapped and incinerated by Vesuvius, the volcano which murdered Pompeii. Emphasis is initially on the volcano, and the eruption for which it is so famous, burying many of the towns in the bay of Naples. Pompeii had been joined in 79 AD by such other notable places as Herculaneum, and villas such as that at Oplontis. It is merely the largest and most colourful of the remains.
The curators, in collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of Naples and Melbourne Museum, have made creative museological decisions. Seeking to replicate the experience of Pompeii, the walls of the first half of the exhibition hall are lined with panoramic images of the town; as one enters the first hall, one is entering the public world of ancient Pompeii. The first room is dedicated to the commerce, trade, and public entertainment of the average Pompeian, while the second, more secluded, reveals aspects of Pompeian religion. The choice of pieces is creative, at the same time informative but insightful. Seeing weighing scales, for example, was refreshingly pertinent to the modern visitor, and at the same time generically 'ancient' in its apparent primitivism.
The second half is introduced by a porchway crowned by that famous dictum 'Cave Canem', with which all students of Latin would be familiar; it is the entrance into the private sphere, as much as the first half had been about the public. The arrangement cleverly recreates the cloistered feel of the Roman home, from the atrium, with its Lararium and shrine to the gods, the triclinium (dining and cooking area, replete with samples of the Roman diet), the resting area (suitably removed), to the garden and outdoor gallery. It is at once a collection, and at the same time an artistic recreation of the essence of Roman domestic space.
At the end of the exhibition is post-Roman Pompeii, a history of its archaeology and excavation, complete with a timeline of Roman history, some Vesuvian rocks, as well as a reading area with some manuals on Pompeian archaeology. Overall the media presentations, a 3D animation of Vesuvius' eruption in 79 AD, some panoramic photographic displays, and a documentary on Vesuvius at the end, do not intrude on what is an artefact-centric exhibition, and rightly so. One is invited to closely inspect and admire the arts of the Romans, with the media only as heuristic aids.
In general the National Museum is an ideal setting, a colonial foundation, housing and displaying, finally, in the straits of Malacca, the relics of old Europe. One only finds the ideal pensive ambiance suited to such a display, yet its 'familial' theme of 'Life in a Roman Town' should resonate with young and old alike. The exhibit only goes on until January the 23rd, 2011, when Italy will again claim her ancestral treasures. With the recent controversies over the collapse of various sites at Pompeii, bringing ever closer to heart the fragility of the ancient past, one could not imagine a more appropriate time to see and appreciate a display dedicated precisely to it, indeed to one of ancient Rome's most fabled cities. Not only would it grace family-time Saturday, to see how Romans might have gone about theirs in 79 AD; it would be a human duty to understand this long and fast vanishing, heritage.
Tickets start at $12 per head, with half-priced concessions for children and students.
Marcus Chin - I write about various things, and in the main out of that simple human emotion - interest and, correspondingly, passion. Knowledge stems ...
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