Buried

TIP TOP: Blue skies made for a sparkling Space Needle this afternoon.  We headed to Pacific Science Center to see the traveling "Pompeii" exhibit, on its last U.S. stop before the artifacts are returned home to Italy.

It's a timed entrance event, so while we were waiting for our turn to enter, the kids rolled around a 4,000 pound ball of granite, all by themselves.

At 3 p.m. we entered the exhibit. This gentleman - or gentlemen, as it turns out - was one of the first to greet us.

Interestingly enough, when you looked closely at the statue, a work in marble believed to have been made between 27 B.C. and 68 A.D., you see that the head was an add on. So apparently the original body lost its head and some early Roman emperor lost his body. Overall, it's a beautiful sculpture nonetheless. 

Nearby was another gorgeous marble head. This one body-less.

We saw furniture, garden statuary, jewelry, housewares, ancient frescoes ... all unearthed in the years after Pompeii was rediscovered by explorers in 1748. 

As Pompeii was excavated, it turned out, ironically, that the volcanic ash had acted as a preservative. Much of the city appeared almost exactly as it had on that fateful day 2,000 years before. Buildings were intact, everyday objects were plentiful, right down to food in the cupboards in some cases.

Annabelle and I decided these gladiator shin guards would not be so great for a modern day soccer player.

I quickly quit taking pictures so I could just wander and look at the collection. 

I did take a couple more at the very end, however, when the casts of humans frozen forever in time by the of the mammoth volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on August 24, 79 A.D., that smothered and buried the busy seaport in more than 12 feet of material. 

Pompeii:  An entire city, gone, in an afternoon, with no warning and no way to escape.  

Not exactly an uplifting experience today, but it was certainly interesting and educational.

ROCKIN': While driving to and from Winco in Kent this morning, we listened to all the Week 3 lectures in our geology class, The Dynamic Earth: A Course for Educators.  Lots of plate tectonics in today's talks.  Afterward, we aced this week's test. The kids need to get busy on their research papers for the class, though. They're due this weekend.