The Pompeii experience, up close and personal

This very large fresco, two metres high and 3.5 metres long, of a garden scene on painted plaster 1st century CE.
It was excavated from the House of the Golden Bracelet in 1975. (Photo: Parco Archeologico di Pompei)

By Helen Musa

“Everybody needs to see an exhibition about Pompeii and apart from going to Pompeii itself, our exhibition is the next best thing,” says National Museum curator and Rome expert, Lily Withycombe.

We’re talking about the museum’s coming summer blockbuster, Pompeii: Inside a Lost City, likely to equal or outdo its previous hit, Discovering Ancient Egypt.

Withycombe, who took part in two archaeological digs at Pompeii when she was an undergraduate, is beyond excited. 

The educational office at the NMA, she says, has already been bombarded with hundreds of calls from teachers, presumably because the very subject of the last days of Pompeii is “one of those iconic subjects”.

Based on an immersive exhibition first shown in 2020 at the Grand Palais in Paris, what we’ll see in Canberra is a development, supported by Parco Archaeologico di Pompei – PAP. 

The exhibition picks up on huge excavations of a new area below Mount Vesuvius, as well as stabilisation and conservation projects that have been going on for some time. 

A bronze signet ring inscribed with an abbreviation for Caius Julius Philippus, found in the wardrobe of the
so-called house of Julius Polybius in Pompeii. (Photo: Parco Archaeologico di Pompei)

The Grand Palais exhibition, which featured only around 20 to 25 real objects, was made possible through a collaboration with multimedia teams that reconstructed impressions of the living Pompeii.

An audiovisual experience, it was very popular, but it happened in the middle of covid, and now the National Museum has had the chance to amplify it with the support of PAP, from whom they have borrowed about 90 objects.

You can expect to see wall frescoes 13 metres in length, exquisite tiny objects like bronze tweezers, an oil lamp in the shape of a sandal, objects in gold, silver and bronze, cooking ware and fine art. 

She is particularly excited that the exhibition will feature the gravestone of a slave – “we were determined to speak to class,” she says.

PAP really came good and have loaned copies made using laser scanning in 2000 from the casts of deceased Pompeiians in their final, excruciating moments.

Reminding me that the story of Pompeii belongs to the whole world so there are international dialogues about respect, Withycombe hastens to say that such confronting objects will be placed in an exclusive area so that visitors can decide whether to go in or not. 

PAP, she says, are careful custodians who had to ensure that the National Museum’s approach was respectable and appropriate. “We did our due diligence.” 

The Canberra exhibition is a dual offering of objects and immersive experiences. 

“I would say that the objects and the immersive features have equal weight,” she says.

“There are frescoes from 14 sites, including  five very large frescoes and many objects from the House of Julius Polybius. 

“There’s even a bronze storage vessel with a bit of volcanic rock stuck to it… and a lot of great photos.

“We’ve chosen objects which show the diversity of life – we’ve read about the elite houses, but what about the shops or being in the taverns? We wanted to give insights into everyday life.”

The immersive part, she expects, will  take us into Pompeii on the eve of eruption in 79CE, with large-scale projections that will make us feel as if we are in that world. 

There’ll be four wall-to-ceiling displays and a moving image of Vesuvius, which fills the space. 

“It’s quite the best aesthetic and makes the visitors feel like they’re there. It’s beautiful and shocking,” Withycombe says, reminding me that when in Pompeii, the volcano always looms, and it was always seen as a sacred site, so much so that buildings were laid out in alignment with it.

Recent DNA studies have shown that the victims were men, women young and old, a full spread, so scholars really don’t know why some people stayed, but happily, she adds, most Pompeiians got out safely.

The multimedia component draws heavily on the 2018-2019 excavations of new areas of Pompeii but goes a step further, recreating the shadows of archaeologists to make you feel as if you’re actually on the dig, experiencing the excitement of excavation.

Pompeii: Inside a Lost City, National Museum of Australia, December 13-May 4.

First published at Canberra City News, November 27, 2024