Russ Chamberlayne checks in to ask 'enviously': "Did your tour of Pompeii leave you wondering if costumed guides in a 'living museum' setting would enhance the experience?"
Yes, sort of. I did sense at Pompeii that immersive feeling that can happen at a well-run reconstruction or preservation site. (And there has been a fair amount of undisguised stabilization and reconstruction work where required at Pompeii.)
But costumed re-enactnent is difficult to bring off well, and proportionately harder as the time and culture gap grows. Would they speak Latin? The theatre at Pompeii is preserved-reconstructed. I wonder if costumed actors could (or do) produce Pompeian scenes there sometimes.
We did the "second part" of Pompeii yesterday. That is, we went to MANN, the Museo Archaeologicio Nazionale Napoli. It is where most of the 'moveables' of Pompeii ended up: silver, bronze, iron, ceramics, glass, and also scores of mosaics and frescoes removed from walls and floors over the centuries of excavation there. We were told there is two hundred more years of excavation possible -- a newly opened house was presented to the media just the other day.
Today: Another fast train back to Rome. Home on Sunday.
