06.18.09
A June Visit to the LACMA
It’s been a while since I’ve visited the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), but since they are currently holding a Pompeii exhibit, we decided to go take a peek. There seems to be constant construction somewhere on the LACMA grounds. Funny how in the midst of a recession, the museum seems to be “growing.” Here’s a picture of one of their new buildings. Not sure what’s in there, yet, but maybe I’ll head back there and check it out.
The Pompeii exhibit was not housed in the above building, but rather across the way. Here’s a pic of the “other” parts of the LACMA. The Pompeii exhibit was housed in the white building in the center behind the palm trees .
For anyone who hasn’t visited the LACMA, this is what part of the entrance looks like.
I found the exhibit very nice and enlightening, however, was disappointed that they did not allow photography in this exhibit. So like my post on the Terra Cotta Army exhibit at the Bowers, the few shots I was able to get were the murals of the Pompeii archaelogical sites such as these.
And this.
Like many others, I’ve always found the story of Pompeii fascinating. I remember the stories my history teacher spoke of regarding how during the excavation they found “holes” in the ground and didn’t know why they were there or what they were for. So they decided to pour plaster down the holes, which they later dug up after the plaster hardened. What they found was that the holes were where people had been buried in the ash from the Vesuvius eruption. Apparently, the people died there and then got covered in ash. Later as their bodies decomposed, cavities in the earth were left in the shapes of their bodies. When years later the achaeologists poured plaster down into those holes, the plaster filled those spaces and reformed the shapes of the bodies of the fallen. Wiki has some pictures of these plaster casts under their “rediscovery” section. Knowing that I might never visit the “real” Pompeii, I really looked forward to visiting this exhibit. This tour included an audio tour, which I thought was a nice touch. Aaron snuck a picture of me here at the very end of the tour just before I returned the headsets.
Fortunately, the boys seemed to enjoy this exhibit, too. The exhibit consisted of many sculptures, paintings, frescos, some jewelry, home furnishings like miniature figurines and ribbon glass (a type of mosaic glass). They also had many herm-heads on display including one of Gaius Julius Cesar and Nero. I always find it a treat to be able to “see” what these people may have looked like. I realize that these sculptures aren’t always very accurate to real life, but some do give their likeness. And so I found it interesting to see Nero’s herm-head, which was kinda chunckier than I had imagined he might have really been like. Well, I never thought what he might have really looked like, but still it was interesting. There was a fresco depiciting food, which my boys all noticed. I think they got a kick seeing the seafood array which included “squid.” I think that caught their eye because it showed them that squid isn’t just a Filipino food, heheheh. The placard read that the Greeks and Romans liked seafoods so they raised their own right in their villas. Some of their figurines are believed to have come from visiting other cities and used to decorated their houses much like we decorate our houses today with vacation souvenirs. It’s such a shame that they didn’t allow photography to share. That’s one thing I liked about Turkey and the London Museum–they allowed lots of photography.
Evidently, after Vesuvius erupted, Pompeii was one of the cities that got completely buried under the ash. It is believed that the city was buried about 60 feet under ash and due to that, many relics were well preserved. It’s amazing to me to think that Pompeii was buried and forgotten for about 1700 years until it was accidentally re-discovered. Fortunately, writings from people like Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger document much information on Pompeii and the Vesuvius eruption. Thus it is recorded that the Vesuvius eruption occurred around 79AD. That made me think of the Bible and how the NT was written around that time. Welll, actually it’s believed that the NT writings were written around 70AD, so the Vesuvuis eruption would have occurred about 10 years afterwards. But even so, that made me think that much of their living conditions would have been something the Apostles were familiar with. The people of Pompeii may have been contemporaries of the Apostles. Just that thought makes it a double shame that no pictures were allowed. . . wah. BUT now that I think of it, I do have some pictures I took in Turkey of some places where the Apostles likely visited, including Ephesus where Paul definitely walked the roads. Hmmmm. I’ll try to dig up some of my Turkey trip pictures and post that in my next post. . .
Okay, Andrew and I have a program to watch, so I’ll hunt those pictures down later and make another blog post to continue my thoughts on some areas that the Apostles must have seen during their lives here on earth. Thank God the museums in Turkey were generous enough to allow unlimited photography. . . at least I can share those.
So toodles for now.
Marlakins
