Pompeii: The Exhibiton

Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

Hi everyone! Welcome to Austin’s Museum Musings!

Happy New Year! For my first post of 2024, I’m excited to talk about my visit to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, specifically to check out their temporary exhibit, Pompeii. It is split between two galleries and it had timed entry tickets to manage the flow of traffic, especially on a crowded day like the one on which I visited the museum. Due to the crowds it was a bit tough to get some good pictures of my favorite artifacts on display, so I apologize in advance!

The exhibit starts with a short video giving an overview of Pompeii—the ancient Roman city that on August 24th, 79 AD, was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering the city and all of its people in around 20 feet of ash. It wasn’t until the 1740s that Pompeii was rediscovered and archaeologists began to unearth the city in earnest, and much of what we know about ancient Roman life can be attributed to the discoveries made in Pompeii.

After the video, the huge double doors to the exhibit proper swing open, beckoning visitors into a section about home life in Pompeii. I liked the use of the map above as a little preview for the places we would visit in the exhibit—civilian houses, the Forum, Baths, and Ampitheater.

I always love little top-down models of buildings like this one of a Pompeiian home, because it gives you a look into how people move through spaces. You can see the Atrium in the center, where this part of the exhibit begins, and the Peristylum garden on the right. It’s so interesting to see how the rectangular space was used—it’s very geometric and reminds me of the many mosaics on display. The Romans, of course, are known for their beautiful and precise architecture, so it’s no surprise to see that precision on display even at the civilian level.

In the Peristylum garden section, I loved this tripod mosaic table. Each leg is adorned with a lion. We, as visitors, were guests in this Pompeiian home, just as its owners would host guests in their time. I got the impression that it was important to convey a family’s wealth through the art they had in their home, and the lions certainly add an intimidation factor to the beautiful craftsmanship.

After the section on the Pompeiian home, we travel next to the Forum, the bustling market space where farmers and craftspeople would sell their wares. I enjoyed the videos like the one above peppered throughout the exhibit that showed a computer-generated recreation of what Pompeii might have looked like in all its glory. It made me wish that the rest of the exhibit was made to look like that instead of the gloomy black interior. I’ll touch more on this later, but as wonderful as seeing all of the artifacts on display was, I’d have loved a more immersive feel to the exhibit as a whole.

That said, the Forum section was incredibly informative, with displays about agriculture and economic practices. Did you know that the reason we use lb. as the abbreviation for pounds is because in ancient Rome, one pound was called a libra? It was cool to see everyday artifacts like this balance and set of weights that survived. In this day and age we have machines that weigh things for us, but back then they had actual marble weights to compare to the product they were selling in order to price it for sale!

The Forum was the last section in the first Gallery. The second Gallery was located across the hall. It was nice to get a little breather in between and return to the hustle and bustle of the main museum floor for a moment before moving on to the second half of the exhibit!

The first section of the second Gallery highlighted Pompeii’s Baths and Ampitheatre—places of entertainment. I loved seeing these beautiful blue glass perfumed oil containers, bottles, and cosmetic mixing cups. It’s small artifacts like these that really make me appreciate just how incredible it is that they have survived since the 1st Century, especially accounting for the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When you think of how fragile glass is, it feels like a miracle that we get to see artifacts like these with our own eyes.

It might not be as beautiful, but the same sentiment applies to this gladiator helmet. It’s pretty banged-up, but that just makes me wonder how it became so—who wore it, and what was their story? Were they enslaved, a criminal, or someone else? Did they earn their freedom, or lose their life in the arena? Every artifact has a story to tell, and imagining them is part of the fun if you ask me!

Thankfully, it was easy to picture life in the arena. I loved this video, complete with (albeit anachronistic) hype music and video-game-style stats, that showed a simulation of different types of gladiators in combat. The video was stationed at the end of this section of the gallery, right before the Eruption Theater—a curtained-off section with a large video screen that puts visitors right in the thick of the chaos. A staff member controlled the flow of traffic into the theater, only letting in a certain amount of people every time the video ended. That said, it was crowded in the theater area, and I couldn’t get a good view of most of the video.

I think that while both of these video experiences were interesting and added value to the exhibit as a whole, it would have been an even more impactful experience if visitors could take a more interactive and immersive role. I know that this is a temporary exhibit, but seeing the level of interactivity in other MSI exhibits made me wish that there were replica gladiator helmets to try on and see what the field of view would be like, or perhaps utilizing more than one screen for the Eruption Theater so that visitors had a closer to 360-degree view.

The Eruption Theater gave way to the final section of the exhibit, detailing the aftermath of Mount Vesuvius’ eruption and how archaeologists excavated and preserved what they found. Coated in calcified layers of ash and debris from the pyroclastic flow, the shapes of the Pompeiian bodies were preseved even after their flesh decomposed. From these, casts, or copies, were made using plaster. This lets us see the exact poses people were in when the eruption happened.

The striking red light against the darkened room was really profound and I thought portrayed the tragic and eerie nature of the eruption.

It wouldn’t be the Museum of Science and Industry without some science! It was fascinating to learn about the science behind Vesuvius’ eruption and see a timelapse of its effect on Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum, which was covered in more than twice as much debris as Pompeii and thus preserved differently. Herculaneum has more wooden features left as well as more skeletons, because the added layers of debris made it harder for organic material to decompose.

One of the highlights of the exhibit for me was actually getting to touch a piece of Pompeii! On display was a fragment of a column from a villa made from tuff, a kind of rock made from ash. This is the same kind of material that was part of the debris that covered the city, so I found it a bit ironic that a common Roman building material was the same stuff expelled from the volcano. I think there’s truly something special about getting to interact with artifacts hands-on in a safe way. MSI definitely succeeded in bringing the city all the way to Chicago, even in this form.

I think that this quote is a poignant end to the exhibit and this post—the grim truth of archaeology is that we can learn so much about human life and history from its worst moments, whether that’s war, natural disasters, or otherwise. We in the modern day are so lucky to be able to study the ruins of Pompeii and gain a deeper understanding of life in ancient Rome, but it of course comes at the cost of so many lives. Even if we are around two thousand years removed from the eruption of Pompeii, I believe it’s still important to consider.

Pompeii at the Museum of Science and Industry was really interesting and definitely worth the visit! Even if I would have liked to see more opportunities for immersive interactivity, it’s no small matter to have so many artifacts on display outside of Italy for the first time, and in such good condition as well. I consider it a privilege to be able to see them, and I hope that my pictures and recap did them justice!

If you want to see this exhibit for yourself, you don't have much time—it closes on January 15th!

As always, thank you so much for reading, and if you’re interested in more from me, I would love if you subscribed to receive my posts via email.

-Austin