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Why Was Erotic Art So Popular in Ancient Pompeii?
Smithsonian ^ | April 28, 2022 | Meilan Solly

Posted on 04/28/2022 8:05:44 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

In the 19th century, the archaeologists tasked with excavating Pompeii and Herculaneum ran into a problem: Everywhere they turned, they found erotic art, from frescoes of copulating couples to sculptures of nude, well-endowed gods.

At a time when sex was widely considered shameful or even obscene, officials deemed the images too explicit for the general public. Instead of placing the artifacts on view, staff at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli stashed them in a secret room closed to all but scholars and, according to Atlas Obscura, male visitors willing to bribe their way in. Between 1849 and 2000, the works remained largely hidden from the public...

The show’s marquee attraction is a fresco of the myth of Leda and the swan. Discovered in 2018, the scene depicts the moment when the god Zeus, disguised as a swan, either rapes or seduces Leda, queen of Sparta. Later, legend holds, Leda laid two eggs that hatched into children: Pollux and Helen, whose “face … launched a thousand ships” by sparking the Trojan War.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: fauxiantroll; fauxiantrolls; godsgravesglyphs; ledaandtheswan; meilansolly; pompeii; romanempire; smithsonian; vesuvius
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To: unlearner

https://int.icej.org/news/headlines/jews-saw-pompeii-retribution-destruction-temple

[snip] Jews saw Pompeii as retribution for destruction of the Temple

Hershel Shanks, the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, has recently published findings indicating that Jews living in the Roman Empire in 79 AD when the southwestern Italian city of Pompeii was destroyed by a massive eruption of the Mount Vesuvius volcano, believed that it was Divine retribution for the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus nine years earlier. Citing archeological evidence in a paper entitled “The Destruction of Pompeii – God’s revenge?” in the July/August edition of the magazine, Shanks told the Jerusalem Post that Book 4 of the Sibylline Oracles, an ancient mystical text, includes a passage which says in part; “When a firebrand, turned away from a cleft in the earth [Vesuvius] In the land of Italy, reaches to broad heaven It will burn many cities and destroy men. Much smoking ashes will fill the great sky And showers will fall from heaven like red earth. Know then the wrath of the heavenly God.” He also points to ancient graffiti scrawled on the walls near Pompeii which includes references to “Sodom and Gomorra.” The eruption of Vesuvius “attacked the core of Roman society,” Shanks concluded. “There’s very good reason to conclude there was a perceived connection and in the eyes of some, God was clearly at work.” [/snip]

dead link, so try this search:

cache:https://int.icej.org/news/headlines/jews-saw-pompeii-retribution-destruction-temple


81 posted on 04/29/2022 8:44:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv
If I ever get there, I’d like to start the day in Herculaneum, and then, if there’s time, see part of Pompeii.

Good plan; two days to see it all. I've been to both. If you go off season, you would be more squeezed for time in fewer hours of daylight. If you go in summer, you could see more; but it would be a long day in the heat, so take water. Also, there are lots of videos on YouTube and elsewhere to pre-view the sites, so your tour would be more comprehensible once you get there.

I went more or less blindly the first time, but it was a long time ago before a lot of the excavations and restorations were done. The second time 15 years later revealed a lot more; and that, too, was many years ago, so by now there's really a lot to see.

Also, the Archaeological Museum of Napoli is outstanding!

82 posted on 04/29/2022 8:46:10 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore, it’s propaganda. --Aaron Rodgers)
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To: Jamestown1630

Thanks! I’d watched on YT before, but it had been a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_3ggKg0Bc

Thanks also for your thoughtul comments.


83 posted on 04/29/2022 8:46:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: carcraft; Persevero
Unwanted kids weren’t a problem, they were placed near woods. If a passerby chose to take the child fine, if not animals ate the child.

Or on the church steps. That's where the Italian surname "Esposito" came from—it means "exposed", as in "to the elements" or "to fate."

84 posted on 04/29/2022 8:48:07 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore, it’s propaganda. --Aaron Rodgers)
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To: SunkenCiv
If I ever get there, I’d like to start the day in Herculaneum, and then, if there’s time, see part of Pompeii.

I was able to visit Herculaneum a few years ago. It was indeed impressive. It's amazing to see life as it was about two thousand years ago.

85 posted on 04/29/2022 8:49:58 AM PDT by Repealthe17thAmendment
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To: SunkenCiv

“Well, they were masters of their domain.”

Until suddenly and without warning they weren’t.

Kinda like in Noah’s day, except they had lots of warning, and chose to ignore until they couldn’t.


86 posted on 04/29/2022 9:01:44 AM PDT by wita (Always and forever, under oath in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Instead of placing the artifacts on view, staff at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli stashed them in a secret room closed to all but scholars and, according to Atlas Obscura, male visitors willing to bribe their way in.

An Italian archaeologist friend of mine sent me and my travel companions (three young women) into the Museo Archeologico on my first trip to Naples, and the museum tour guard was having an admittedly mild crisis of conscience about how much to show us, since American women can make a scene. Up on a high pedestal in the center of one of the more public rooms, there was a large nude male sculpture, which had a small hole in the fig leaf area. The guard took a happy-to-see-us sculpted phallus out of a drawer and inserted it for our viewing pleasure—LOL! We were rather naïve, middle-class gals and he got a kick out of embarrassing us! A memorable tour.

87 posted on 04/29/2022 9:01:45 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore, it’s propaganda. --Aaron Rodgers)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

Good grief. I’m saying that you have to try and understand ancient cultures in context, to understand them at all.

There are things in the Old Testament and even the New that we find strange and even barbaric today; and yet we think those cultures produced very advanced philosophies. We appreciate them while at the same time we recognize certain things within the context of their times.

You’re verging on the same prejudice that the ‘wokeists’ display when they tear down statues of slaveholders, Confederate leaders, etc.


88 posted on 04/29/2022 9:06:12 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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Nice animation, very poor script.
Find lesson materials for this video and create aha! moments for your students with STEM programs from Twig Education.
Geography Lesson: Pompeii Volcano Eruption | Twig
November 12, 2012 | Twig Education
Geography Lesson: Pompeii Volcano Eruption | Twig | November 12, 2012 | Twig Education

89 posted on 04/29/2022 9:07:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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The rest of the Pompeii keyword, sorted:

90 posted on 04/29/2022 9:07:48 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Jamestown1630

More like pagan cultures are often pornographic. Our own culture is growing more pornographic and pagan by the day, but it is nothing procreative either with birthdates dropping as fast as Christian moral structures. Remember pagan Roman society was also one that would put infants out to die of exposure if they weren’t deemed worthy.


91 posted on 04/29/2022 9:09:44 AM PDT by Data Miner
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy

Thank you.


92 posted on 04/29/2022 9:09:48 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: ifinnegan

I’m a NeoZoroastrian.


93 posted on 04/29/2022 9:10:39 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Albion Wilde

Hey, if you had been Europeans, he’d have used his own, instead of the sculpted one. ;^)


94 posted on 04/29/2022 9:12:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: wita
Except that in Noah's day, there must have been plenty of warning, since building the Ark as described would require 3000 man-years of labor.

95 posted on 04/29/2022 9:13:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy; Jamestown1630; Red6

Thanks APD, and the translated original is around here somewhere...

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pompeii.htm

Pliny the Elder comes off a little like Baghdad Bob, btw.


96 posted on 04/29/2022 9:17:55 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Claud

> When was sex considered shameful or obscene?

When the artifacts were found, obviously. That’s why they were kept out of public display in the museum. Helps to read.


97 posted on 04/29/2022 9:20:19 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: PIF

Well, your point of view would be against scripture.

As I was pointing out, the Bible says we actually do know better. Not to all particulars. But we know what sin is.


98 posted on 04/29/2022 9:23:01 AM PDT by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
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To: Repealthe17thAmendment
It's interesting how the ordinary aspects of life at that time have remained common.

99 posted on 04/29/2022 9:23:02 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Maybe the Baghdad Battery was older than we think :-)


100 posted on 04/29/2022 9:24:38 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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