Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: the theatre, in the context of the Pompeii diorama, Archaeological Museum, Naples.
Today's Flickr photo with the most hits was taken in the archaeological museum of Naples, and shows a fresco from the Villa Boscoreale.
Herculaneum in Two Hours
Serpentinium, 24/F/Florida
I remember a dog with matted fur lounging in the shade of a collapsed arch, staring in a way that animals sometime stare that makes me wonder if the beliefs of Kantianism are nothing more than old wives’ tales spun from smoke and cinder.
I remember the faint smell of sulfur mixed with seawater in the shadow of the volcano that poured out its wrath by the bowlful, the golden urns of the gods spilling fire and magma from the very cradle of hell.
I remember the empty bathhouses, the villas with half-painted frescoes, the expensive red paints made from crushed beetle shells, the overturned tables and chairs, the uneven stone streets carved by horse-drawn cart wheels.
I remember the skeletons huddled in boathouses, unearthed from their ash-spun graves for prying eyes, for the rapid shutter of camera lenses, for the proof of their existence, as if to leer at the living and say,
“We are all nothing but carbon and bone.”
Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits: these two bronze runners from the Villa of the Papyri. They may be seen in the archaeologocal museum in Naples.
Today’s photo with the most hits - this shot from Naples’ archaeological museum. It shows Terentius Neo and his wife.The couple lived in Pompeii. Terentius was a baker and was apparently standing for office (graffiti on the house about the elections). They appear as a prosperous and educated couple, confident in their relationship and social standing. At least until the eruption of Vesuvius in 79CE.
Pliny the Younger writes an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79CE. His uncle died in the eruption, attempting to rescue survivors.