Birds of Pompeii: LXXIX

Yesterday Terry took me to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

which I regard as one of my most favorite places on this Earth.

The occasion?

An incredible temporary exhibit called A Day in Pompeii.

I cannot remember a time that I did not know the word "Pompeii" and what it meant.

I may have learned it from my mother who was passionate about world history and art.

I may have learned it while exploring my grandmother MacBeath's bookcase as a small child.

For sure I knew it by first grade

when I would run home from school, 

where I had read about Dick and Jane and Sally and Puff and Spot,

and dive into our encyclopedias,

The Book of Knowledge: Lands and Peoples, 

to explore the world.

I recognized no disconnect at the time.

It was what it was.

Seriously, who could not love Puff and Spot?

           

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dick_and_Jane.jpg                                                            http://sidsmith.blogspot.com/2012/05/book-of-knowledge-i.html

In my young mind 

Pompeii 

linked 

erupting Vesuvius and sudden death 

with the tragic and the  romantic, 

not in the sense of love, 

but in the sense of heroic, mysterious, remote, idealized, and adventurous.

I was entranced with Pompeii, and I still am.

Vesuvius Erupting August 24, LXXIX

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_the_last_day_1.jpg

One Death Among Thousands

                          

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_the_last_day_5.jpg                 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_the_last_day_6.jpg

One of the first things I saw in the exhibit, 

and most unexpected,

was a garden.

I had never understood how much the people of Pompeii loved their gardens.

And, even more unexpected, 

I learned they loved their birds.

Portion of a Garden Fresco from House of the Golden Bracelet

Portion of the Same Garden Fresco

Pompeii, 

and its nearly as well-known sister city in the disaster, 

Herculaneum, 

are famous for their beautiful and lifelike frescos,

often found on the walls of buildings that were buried in volcanic ash and mud. 

Fresco is an ancient technique for painting large murals.  

Artists used water-based pigments to paint on fresh or wet lime plaster.

The pigments sink into the wet plaster

and create glowing colors

that are very different from those 

obtained by applying pigments to dry plaster.

The earliest known fresco-like paintings were created some 30,000 years ago 

in the Chauvet cave in southern France.

The Garden Fresco from House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Single_continuous_fresco_from_the_House_of_the_Golden_Bracelet,_Pompeii.jpg

Pompeii also contained beautiful mosaics with birds.

Mosaics are images created by

putting together pieces of colored stone, glass, or other materials.

Two exquisite examples of this decorative art, 

unfortunately not in the DMNS exhibit, 

come from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. 

Cat with Partridge (upper tier)

Teal (left lower tier) and Common Shelduck (right lower tier)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cat_birds_MAN_Napoli_Inv9993.jpg

Bird and Duck

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nilotic_scene_MAN_Napoli_Inv9990_n05.jpg

Some Pompeians died in the Garden of the Fugitives
on that terrible day in LXXIX.

 Garden of the Fugitives, Pompeii

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_Garden_of_the_Fugitives_02.jpg

The 79 A.D. tragedy in Pompeii gives us,
we who live almost 2,000 years later,
more than a glimpse into the lives of these ancient Romans;
in their love of gardens and birds, we can recognize ourselves.
In the haunting casts of their final moments,
we can recognize our common humanity.

Question:  

Does this ever happen to you, fellow bloggers?  

You start writing what you think will be a quick post on a narrow topic,

and you discover you have lost hours and hours.
Good grief!
How long is it going to take me to write my A Pompeii Kitchen post?