Italy Reopens Its Historic Pompeii Antiquarium Museum

Jewels and paintings from the House of the Golden Bracelet, silver tableware found years ago in Moregine and a unique bronze statue by Giulio Polibio are some of the things to be seen in the Antiquarium of Pompeii, which reopened this week. Also on display are the charcoal writing that shifted the date of the eruption from August 79 AD to October of that year; amulets found in the House with a Garden, as well as the casts of two fleeing people, a result of excavations a few months ago in the Civita Giuliana villa. The Antiquarium has been renovated and transformed into the central museum of the city, telling its history, from the Samnite period to its destruction. The Antiquarium will exhibit Pompeii’s most valuable treasures alongside a large portion of the most famous discoveries of the latest excavations. Pompeii director Massimo Osanna stressed that “Pompeii finally has a museum and it is a unique one.”