A good disaster narrative never fails to captivate — and the story of Pompeii is particularly compelling because it truly occurred. Since its rediscovery in 79 AD, the old Roman town of 11,000 has served as a source of immense historical importance, having been buried and frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. In terms of first-century Roman life, Pompeii has it all: baths, residences, tools and other things (including several wine bottles), frescoes, graffiti, a theater, an aqueduct, the “Villa of the Mysteries,” and the “Villa of the Mysteries.”
More than any other source, the ash-preserved ruins of Pompeii have offered historians an insight into what life was like at that period and in that location. A Day in Pompeii, an exhibition hosted at the Melbourne Museum in 2009, allowed its more than 330,000 visitors to gain a more in-depth understanding of Pompeii’s everyday life. The exhibition contained a 3D theater installation, which exhibited the animation shown above, among other things. Watch it, and you’ll witness Pompeii brought back to life using computer-generated graphics — and then, in a series of images taken over 48 hours, entombed by Vesuvius for the second and final time.
