Life and death in the ill-fated Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum is at the heart of a new exhibition at the British Museum.
For the first time in 40 years, more than 450 objects from the preserved cities are going on display in London, many of which haven't been seen outside Italy.
Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples in southern Italy were buried by the catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. As both cities were unprepared for the event, the daily life of its citizens were preserved until they were discovered nearly 1700 years later.
The exhibition has been curated by Dr. Paul Roberts, who also acts as Senior Curator of Roman Archaeology at the British Museum. He told Reuters "When we look at Pompeii and Herculaneum what we see are real people, ordinary cities. They weren't Rome, they weren't Alexandria, that's why they're so important to us, because when they were buried, Pompeii and Herculaneum preserved for us what life was like in two ordinary cities. They're quite different between themselves. Pompeii was a much bigger city, Herculaneum was a sea side resort if you like."
The exhibition is split into different areas of daily life, from the high street, to the living room, garden, and kitchen and contains tools and belongings of that time. "They were things that people commissioned, bought, loved, enjoyed, used, handled," said Dr Roberts, "They were things that belonged in their homes and by looking at their possessions, we can look at the people behind the possessions."
Because of their geographical locations around Mount Vesuvius, both cities were buried in differing ways leading to artifacts being preserved or destroyed in different ways.
"Herculaneum was buried under a phenomenally hot avalanche of volcanic material, 400 degrees Centigrade - four times the heat of a boiling kettle" explained Dr Roberts, "and what that did was to carbonise wood, so wooden furniture and even food was turned into charcoal, turned into carbon and we just don't get that in Pompeii, we only get that in Herculaneum so the seven pieces of furniture we have in Herculaneum are amongst the most special things we have."
The exhibition displays Herculaneum with a loaf of bread perfectly preserved in carbon, as well as furniture and finally a woman whose remains have been preserved.
However, the thing that makes Pompeii so famous are the casts of people, which were almost overlooked when they began excavating the site. Dr Roberts said "when they discovered a hole in the ash, they dug down and there were usually bones at the bottom of it, so they understood they were dealing with people. Then in the 1860's a man called Giuseppe Fiorelli thought I'll pour plaster of Paris down the holes and he did so and let the plaster set and when they dug the ash away there were the bodies, of people from Pompeii, people in the moment of their deaths and that's one of the things that's so moving about Pompeii."
"Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum" runs at the British Museum from 28 March to 29 September.