National Achaeological Museum

Today we went to the National Museum of Archeaology. There were many items from Pompeii, such as the sarcophagus on the left. How's this for a grave liner? That's definity upgrading to a Dignity package, bet someone got a huge bonus! (sorry, just a little work humor).







Here's a statue called Group of the Farnese Bull. It's from the Roman Baths of Caracalla and is a copy of a 2nd or 3rd century BC Hellenistic statue. This copy is from 4th or 5th century AD (I think). Michaelangalo did some of the repair work on it and had it placed in a fountain, where it stayed for sometime before coming to Naples. Legend has it Dirce, the 2nd wife of Lycus of Thebes became pregnant. Lycus didn't believe the child was his, which apparently it wasn't, as Zeus was said to be the father. Lycus' older children captured Dirce and tied her to the horns of a raging bull, who dragged her to her death.

I can't remember the name of this statue or where she was found, but I don't believe it was Pompeii. She may have also come from the Baths of Caracalla. She is a fertility goddess, who either has a lot of breasts or sports a necklace of some kind of testicles. Either way it sure looks heavy.

On the right is part of a fresco found in Pompeii. It's amazing the beauty of the art work found after so many centuries. There were bottles, bronze containers, all kinds of things. Very beautiful.





Here's one of the mosaics. It was taken from a wall in Pompeii. One of our favorites was a huge floor mural of Alexander Fighting the Persians. It is 6m x 3m (I don't know the conversion) but huge. There are over one million tiles in it, approximately 15 tiles per square centimeter. Here's a picture of it, below.


There were many things to look at and enjoy. It was somewhat overwhelming. We've tried to find a good link to the museum, and this is about the best we've come up with. You can see some of the highlights.

http://www.culturacampania.rai.it/site/en-gb/Cultural_Heritage/Museums/Scheda/napoli_archeologico.html?link=storia