Monday 11 January 2010

Exhibition: Pompeya y una villa romana


I have a blog confession to make: I went to a museum hosting a Pompeii exhibition and I didn't go... (sorry Jo!)

As previously mentioned on the blog, Mexico City's Museo Nacional de Antropología is currently holding the exhibition "Pompeya y una villa Romana: arte y cultura alrededor de la Bahia de Napoles" which is a great opportunity to see a wide selection of Vesuvian artefacts for those in that part of the world. The exhibition website in Spanish and English can be found here.

What I can tell you from having been there (if not actually in) is that the exhibition is entered from the main museum foyer, but with a separate ticket. The ticket costs 51 Mexican pesos although there is free entry on Sundays for Mexican citizens and residents. The museum is open every day except Monday and you can visit the exhibition from 9am to 7pm (although the website says until 5pm).
I saw no sign of an exhibition catalogue, but then sadly the museum bookshop was closed for stock taking over the holidays.

If you do visit the exhibition and haven't been to the museum before, then let me recommend that you dedicate at least an entire day so that you can also see the main collection (enough Romans! There are some big bits of Mesoamerican archaeology to enjoy!) The Museo Nacional de Antropología is one of those great museums that leaves you amazed by the wealth of their collection - I spent five hours there and saw less than half the objects (explaining why I didn't make it into the Pompeii exhibition, which also seemed a bit too much like a busman's holiday!)
Being able to compare the old and new world civilisations (much of which are roughly contemporary) makes a very interesting exercise.

1 comment:

Jo Berry said...

A comment from Carol Mattusch (which I have been slow to post because I've been travelling back from Anaheim):
'"Pompeii and the Roman Villa" in Mexico City does not have the last section of the show - on the rediscovery. The intention was to translate the catalogue into Spanish but to eliminate that chapter. Carol Mattusch'

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