Pompeii
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Nearly everything that archaeologists and other scholars have found in Pompeii has presented the world with important information about the daily life in Rome in the first century: As tragic and terrible as was the volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. that killed so many citizens of this city, the result was a trove of information for scholars since the first excavations in the mid-18th century. Often the record of a past civilization that archaeologists come across is one that is carefully arranged. A grave, for example, presents a view of a culture that is highly managed, that presents the inhabitants in the way that is most likely to please the gods (which is often very different from the ways in which people actually live.) But Pompeii presents us - under the disorder of those last terrible few hours and minutes - with an ordinary city. But even within the archaeological richness of quotidian life, there are some elements of the discoveries that are especially illuminating about life in Pompeii. Among these are the murals that have come to be called the "Mysteries of Pompeii".These "mysterious" murals comprise four panels, and their title (although it is derived from the type of religious ceremony that may be pictured) also reminds us that even when there is as much archaeological evidence about a time and a place as there is about Pompeii in 79 A.D., there is still much that is lost to time. We do not yet know exactly what the artist intended in creating these murals nor what
. . .
.umich.edu/kelsey/research/Publications/spring2000/pompeii.html).
One of the reasons that there is disagreement over the meaning (and original function) of these murals is that the Dionysian cult (as suggested above) was like most of those dedicated to gods the realm of men. While it was in most cases possible for men to be initiated into the cults of goddesses and women into the cults of gods, it was unusual. Is this, perhaps, one reason why such a magnificent set of murals was commissioned to depict this event - because it was unusual? Was there a special relationship between the women of Pompeii and the god Dionysius that did not exist in other Roman cities and so was especially celebrated in Pompeii?
Or was this vision of a woman entering into a man's realm something that was unusual even in Pompeii, was something that was supported and celebrated only by the owner of this building? One of the easiest mistakes to make in archaeology is to assume that an artifact represents a practice that is more common than it actually was. As Grant (2001) argues throughout his book on Pompeii, it is tempting to grant to the artifacts found there an almost mythic status and to assume that similar items would have been found throughout oth
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Pompeii Guzzo, Amery Curran, Euripedes Bacchae, , Mysteries Pompeii, Pompeii Rome, Christ Mary, Angeles Getty, Christ Dionysius, cult dionysius, join cult, Johns Hopkins, pompeii los angeles, amery curran, pompeii herculaneum, roman cities, similar murals, angeles getty, pompeii los, 79 ad, los angeles getty, join cult dionysius, los angeles,
Approximate Word count = 1492
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Pompeii
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
