Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave, April 18 through August 30, 2020 at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California

Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave, April 18 through August 30, 2020 at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California.

A trove of 300 Roman objects spanning ancient sculptures, mosaics, furnishings and frescoes as well as tableware will be on display at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California when it hosts the exhibit, “Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave.” It will also showcase large-scale statues of Olympian gods including Venus, Apollo, Hercules, Mercury and Zeus whom the Pompeii citizens revered and worshipped at the time. Food samples from tiny remnants left on dishes, vessels, and even kitchen drains, as well as carbonized foods that were found in excavated homes and businesses shed light on the reveal the variety of food and drink consumed in Pompeii. Another gallery walks visitors through a typical Pompeii home in which food and drink played a major role, commencing with the atrium, which Pompeiians used to present their most beautiful belongings. The exhibition also offers a glimpse of how food and wine were produced and distributed before being brought to dining tables, as seen in the galleries that highlight the triclinium (dining room) and the kitchen. An entire wall of frescoes from a summer dining room, open to fresh air at one end, will travel from Pompeii to the United States for the first time. Other glorious frescoes showcase lavish gardens, elaborate marine life, and delicately painted animals such as rabbits and roosters. One of the most interesting items in the exhibition is a container used to hold and fatten dormice (a type of rodent found in Europe and one of the delicacies of the Roman table), as well as a carbonized loaf of bread excavated from a baker’s oven, abandoned when the volcano began to erupt. Even artwork from the notorious "Secret Cabinet" of the Naples National Museum of Archaeology can be seen. A transparent resin cast of the "Lady of Oplontis" is also included. This unique cast shows the bones, skull, and teeth of a woman, as well as the possessions she carried—from gold jewelry to a string of cheap beads.



Image: Resin cast of a female skeleton excavated at Oplontis in 1984. Wax was injected into the void around the victim’s bones, left to harden, and then coated in plaster. Once the ‘plaster cast’ had set, the wax was melted out and replaced with liquid epoxy resin- to produce a durable, transparent cast, which allowed the victim’s jewellery and hairpin to be viewed in situ on the body. Image courtesy of History and Archaeology Online: Rediscovering the Past -

https://historyandarchaeologyonline.com/human-remains-in-pompeii-the-unique-case-of-the-body-casts/

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