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Jolie Rouge
04-16-2003, 02:45 PM
NAPLES, Italy (Reuters) - Entombed in volcanic ash 2,000 years ago, Pompeii has long offered visitors a glimpse of ancient Roman life. Now they can also get a sniff.

Directors at the sprawling archaeological site inaugurated "The Perfumer's House" on Tuesday and took the stoppers off 15 different perfumes concocted after a decade of research.

Lily, rose, basil and fennel are just a few of the heady scents that once fired the imaginations of ancient Romans, said Anna Maria Ciarallo, Pompeii's head of biological research.

"Finally, and based on scientific research, we can give Pompeii back some of its fragrance," she said.

Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in a fiery deluge in 79 AD. Hundreds of temples, villas and fleeing Romans were trapped in the shower of volcanic ash. It is now one of the world's most-visited tourist sites.

The perfumes, which often mixed spices imported from Egypt and India with native plants, will be on display at Pompeii until June 2 along with copies of the bronze, glass and alabaster vials found at the site.



04/16/03 11:30

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-reodd&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20030416%2F113130564.htm&sc=reodd

janelle
04-16-2003, 04:59 PM
I would think they would change their fragance somewhat. I know my old perfume just doesn't smell the same as when it was new. lol

It would be great though if perfumers could duplicate some of those fragances when they were new.

schsa
04-16-2003, 05:14 PM
And Pompeii was so beautiful. Anyone who has been there knows that the people who lived there had to be very wealthy because of the many mosaics and the baths alone. The fact that they were able to find perfume bottles only seems to fit the type of people who lived there.

If you ever go to Italy, go to Pompeii. It is unbelievably impressive.

Jolie Rouge
03-06-2011, 10:35 PM
Pompeii exhibit in NYC shines light on buried city
By Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press – Fri Mar 4, 5:24 pm ET

NEW YORK – A new exhibition from Italy that opens Friday at New York's Discovery Times Square captures the last gasp of the ancient city of Pompeii before it was buried under volcanic ash, mud and rock when Mount Vesuvius erupted 2,000 years ago.

Copies of body casts that researchers made from the skeletal remains of residents buried alive are an eerie part of the exhibit — a crouching man covers his mouth, a chained dog appears contorted, a family of four huddle together.

A short film recreates what Pompeians might have felt as they tried to escape. The museum's floor vibrates as the volcano's furor grows; a movie screen rises and a double door opens to reveal a funereal scene of 20 "bodies" hardened in poses from their final moments.

Pompeii existed for 700 years before it was snuffed out in just 24 hours.

"Pompeii The Exhibit: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius" also chronicles life in the vibrant mercantile city before and after Vesuvius erupted. Colorful room and garden frescoes, mosaic floors, pottery and gold jewelry are among the artifacts featured.

Located on Italy's western coast, Pompeii's rich volcanic soil produced wine grapes, wheat and other crops. Both a river and sea port, the city exported goods throughout the Roman Empire and imported such items as lamps, pottery and olive oil from northern Italy, France and Spain.

Its 25,000 inhabitants were well-to-do farmers, bankers, ship captains and traders whose thriving city boasted 200 wine bars, inns and restaurants, 33 bakeries, and Thermoplia, the fast food shops that ladled hot foods from big terra cotta pots.

"The exhibition provides a complete picture of life in an ancient city. No archaeological excavation gives the totality of life like Pompeii," said Judith Harris, an exhibition consultant and author of "Pompeii Awakened, A Story of Rediscovery.".

On the morning of Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Vesuvius began spewing ash, mud and noxious gases without warning. A 12-mile black cloud from the volcano blocked out the sun.

Harris said Pompeii was forgotten for 16 centuries — "no identifiable trace" — until the mid-18th century when a farmer digging a well struck the ruin.

The volcano's intense heat proved to be a great preservative. Archaeologists found the remains of 1,100 people. Eighty-one carbonized loaves of bread were found in the ruins of a single baker's oven. A plaster copy of a carbonized original is on display in the show.

But the most dramatic and unsettling part of the exhibition are the copies of body casts. The casts were first made by pioneer archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli in the late 1800s. Volcanic ash and pumice encapsulated the bodies at Pompeii. After the bodies decomposed, skeletal cavities remained. Liquid plaster could be poured into the cavity and capture the person's dimensions, posture and expression once the plaster solidified — almost as if creating a statue.

The body casts include a family found in a downstairs room of the House of the Gold Bracelet. The dust that settled on the youngest child, a toddler, "was so fine that you can actually see the eye lashes ... and the way that the robe rode up during the destruction," Harris said.

Especially disturbing is a cast of 32 skeletons, found together and including several young children. They were among numerous complete skeletons discovered in 1982 on the seashore of the city of Herculaneum, four miles north of Pompeii and destroyed the same day. By 2002, about 350 skeletons had been found, disproving a theory that most of Herculaneum's inhabitants had escaped.

The irony of the city's annihilation is that the volcanic rich soil provided its residents a rich livelihood, said Kristin Romey, the exhibition's local archaeological curatorial consultant.

Pompeians' two-story townhouses were lavishly decorated. Some had running water and hot tubs. The exhibition features an exquisite mosaic fountain set within a garden wall painted and decorated in colorful glass and see shells. A fresco evokes a lush garden of lotus flowers and doves sipping from a birdbath executed in green, blue and yellow.

The ancient Romans also loved to display erotic artifacts, with everything from lamps to garden statuary.

Pompeii housed 41 places of prostitution and a public brothel in the middle of town, a two-story structure with five cubicles — sparse tiny, narrow rooms — on each floor containing erotic frescos. One, recreated at the exhibition, has graffiti on the wall that translates to: "Here I came, I had sex, then I went home." It's discretely tucked away behind other exhibits.

Pompeians' love for graffiti had no bounds. They left scrawls on city walls, everything from comments about upcoming elections to proclamations of love.

Today, 3.5 million people live in the shadow of Vesuvius, which remains the only active volcano in mainland Europe. The last eruption was in 1944.

The exhibit is curated by the Soprintendenza di Archaeologica Napoli e Pompei, a government authority responsible for the excavation site, and organized by Running Subway Productions. A portion of the exhibition proceeds will go for the preservation of the site. The exhibit runs through Sept. 5.

Organizers said the exhibit would next travel to a museum in Boston.

___

Online http://www.discoverytsx.com/pompeii

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20110304/ap_tr_ge/us_travel_brief_pompeii_exhibition

janelle
03-08-2011, 07:02 PM
WOW you searched it back in 2003? You have a good memory. I can't remember what I posted back then.

Jolie Rouge
03-08-2011, 08:32 PM
I did a search of threads with "Pompei " and this was one of three that popped up. I did a project on Pompei in grade school and I have always been facinated with the topic.

Jolie Rouge
06-24-2016, 06:36 PM
Skeletons, coins found in dig of ancient Pompeii shop

ROME — Italian and French archaeologists have discovered four skeletons and gold coins in the ruins of an ancient shop on the outskirts of Pompeii.

Pompeii archaeological site officials said Friday the skeletons are those of young people, including an adolescent girl, who perished in the back of the shop when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79. Three gold coins and a necklace's pendant were scattered among the bones. In the workshop was an oven which archaeologists hypothesize was used to make bronze objects.

The excavation of that and a second ancient shop started in May near a necropolis in the Herculaneum port area.

In another stunning discovery, the dig revealed a 4th century B.C. tomb of an adult, complete with funerary vases.

Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were ancient Roman towns.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/skeletons-coins-found-in-dig-of-ancient-pompeii-shop/ar-AAhAH1b?ocid=ansmsnnews11