POMPEII, Italy (AP) – Decades after being bombed and damaged by the earthquake, the Pompeii museum was reborn, exhibiting extraordinary discoveries from excavations in the ancient Roman city.
Officials from the archaeological park of the ruins of the city destroyed in 79 AD by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius opened the museum on Monday.
Known as Antiquarium, the museum offers Pompeii a permanent exhibition space. Visitors can see sections of frescoes in the city’s unearthed villages, examples of some of the graffiti discovered by archaeologists, as well as household objects ranging from silver spoons to a bronze food warmer, items of everyday life that were erased by the volcanic explosion .
Opened around 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 earthquake, the museum was closed, although it was reopened in 2016 as a space for temporary exhibitions.
Antiquarium exhibits also document Pompeii’s history as a settlement several centuries before it became a thriving Roman city.
Due to the travel restrictions of Italy’s COVID-19 pandemic, currently only visitors from the Campania region, which includes the Naples area and the ruins of Pompeii, can see the museum.
Pompeii is one of Italy’s main tourist attractions and, when mass tourism resumes, tickets to the ruins will also include a visit to Antiquarian.
The reopening of the museum after so many decades of labor pains is “a sign of great hope during a very difficult time,” said the longtime director of Pompeii, Massimo Osanna. He referred to the severe blow that the travel restrictions of the pandemic inflicted on tourism, one of Italy’s biggest sources of revenue.
In the last room of the museum, there are touching molds made from the remains of some residents of Pompeii who tried to escape, but were overcome by explosions of volcanic gases or hit by a shower of lava stones ejected from Vesuvius.
“I find the last room, the one dedicated to the eruption, particularly touching and where objects deformed by the heat of the eruption, the molds of the victims, the molds of the animals are exposed,” said Osanna. “Really, someone touches the incredible drama that was the eruption of 79 AD with his hand.”
Large sections of Pompeii have yet to be excavated. While tourism practically stopped during the pandemic, archaeologists continued to work.
Just a month ago, Osanna revealed the discovery of an old fast-food restaurant in Pompeii. Completely excavated, the find helped to reveal dishes popular with citizens of the ancient city who apparently liked to eat out, including what was on the menu the day Pompeii was destroyed.
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D’Emilio reported from Rome.