Pompeii and Paestum

This past weekend (February 26-27), my program went to Pompeii and Paestum to explore and analysis the two archeological sites.  The weather held off for both days and we had a great time walking around, sketching, and taking photos.

The day before we left for Pompeii, I had to go to the Vatican for one of my classes to visit the Special Collection.  Oddly enough, our professor who works at the Vatican forgot to notify the Vatican police that we were coming in a large group.  As our professor likes to put it, we also "got arrested" by the Vatican police.  Thankfully, she was able to tell them who we were and we were finally allowed in after waiting 45 minutes.

Panoramic of Pompeii

We left for Pompeii early Saturday morning around 8am on a double decker bus.  We got to Pompeii and after a short lecture about the importance of the city of Pompeii as a preserved city, we were given free reign to explore.  Pompeii has an interesting history in the sense that in 79 AD Mt. Vesuvius erupted, covering the entire city and its inhabitants in ash.  Because of this, plaster casts have been made on the cavities in the ash where animal and human remains had been.  You can see some of this casts at the site.  What is also really important about Pompeii is that it gives archeologists great insight into Roman architecture.  I remember writing a research paper in sixth grade on the importance Pompeii had in understanding how advanced ancient Roman architecture was (if only I could find this paper now!).  Pompeii also has amazing frescoes in 4 different styles: simulation of marble (or other masonry elements), architectural style (painted on elements of architecture and three dimension realities, like columns), ornate style (figurative and colorful decoration), and a baroque reaction to the Third Style (framed pictures that took up the entire wall).  I studied these styles in art history class and it was great to finally see them.

Cast mold of a dog found during excavation

Fresco at the Villa of Mysteries showing first and second style 

Fresco in the brothel (pretty explicit...)

In between Pompeii and Paestum, we stayed at a hotel right on the water.  I shared a room with my roommate from the apartment and had a room overlooking the water.  Some of the guys were crazy enough to even go for a swim.

Paestum is also a great archeological site.  However, it is not Roman in nature, but Greek.  It has three temples of the Doric Order on site and a great archeological museum that has hundreds of frescos and Black and Red Figure vases.

On our way back to Rome on Sunday afternoon, we stopped to visit a cistern, an underground reservoir for water.  The cistern is about 3 football fields longs and worked with an aqueduct system to transport the water from the cistern to the port below.  This particular cistern is actually very well known and was the location for a scene in one of the Lord of Ring movies!

Cistern

During the time of our trip, I was also taking pictures for a photography project.  I decided that for my project I would focus on framing objects with elements from the sites.  The last four images attached are for my project.  For those of you who are artists out there, let me know what you think!