Yesterday I took the 3 older children downtown on the METRO and visited the Pompeii exhibit currently being shown at the National Gallery of Art-East. While I wish we had shoved off a little sooner it was a thoroughly enjoyable hour touring the 5 rooms filled with frescoes, sculpture, mosaics, and paintings. Since we toured Pompeii, Herculaneum, the Archaeological Museum in Naples, and many smaller Roman sites throughout the Campania region of Italy it was fun to revisit the culture and language we were immersed in for 3 years.
The 10 minute film gave a very good overview of what life was like for the Romans in 79 AD as well as the historical background. While our knowledge of Greek mythology is lacking, the older children had just studied some of the early Roman Emperors in Story of the World and could spout facts about Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar when we came upon busts of the two men. We sat on the floor in the red dining room and pretended to eat, we called each other by our "Italian" names, and imagined the riot of color that would have surrounded us if we lived like the Romans with mosaics on the floor, frescoes painted on the walls and ceiling, and painted statues in the courtyard.
The whole lifestyle of Pompeii's elite sounded so luxurious until I remembered that almost all the inhabitants perished in a particularly gruesome way. We finished off our time downtown with a very gourmet lunch at Cousin Ann's of lovely roasted chicken and tuna sandwiches, chips, fruit, and cookies. The next stop on our family's tour of DC involves body parts, antique medical equipment, and the history of medicine in America. Read my review of the National Museum of Health and Medicine next week.
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1 comment:
I'm envious! We're just wrapping up a rather lengthy study of Ancient Rome. I think we all would have enjoyed that field trip.
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