An Italian government representative is taking possession of them at a ceremony Wednesday. The artifacts are a Pompeii plaster wall painting and a Corinthian vase for mixing water and wine.

They were recovered by immigration and customs officials in June. Both items had been scheduled for auction in New York before they were discovered to have been stolen.

Immigration officials said the vase may have been illegally introduced into the art market by Giacomo Medici (JAH’-kuh-moh MEH’-dih-chee) in 1985. The art dealer was convicted in Rome in 2004 of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities.

The wall painting was reported stolen in Italy in 1997.

Original article-with photos

A hundred pieces, which reveal the luxury and sophistication that this Mediterranean zone reached before the Vesuvius erupted in 79 of the Common Era, arrive to Mexico as part of the exhibition “Pompeya y una Villa Romana: Arte y Cultura alrededor de la Bahia de Napoles” (Pompeii and the Roman Villa. Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples), to be opened at the National Museum of Anthropology in November 2009.

As part of the cultural exchange program between Mexico and Italy, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) sponsors this international exhibition within its cycle “Great Civilizations”. In return, “Teotihuacan, City of Gods” will be displayed at the Palace of Exhibitions in Rome in 2010.

“Pompeii and the Roman Villa” was presented before at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, United States, with an important affluence of visitors. The exhibition was organized by both museums with the support of Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Campania and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompeii.

Most objects are part of the Naples National Archaeological Museum collection, while others come from the heaps of Archaeological Museum of Campi Flegrei, Pompeii Excavations Office, as well as Oplontis, in Torre Annunziata. A sculpture of young Hercules exhibited is part of the collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Continued here

Professor Martin Winkler, internationally renowned expert in Classics and Film Studies, wowed Gusties on Sunday night, Nov. 1st with his lecture “The Last Days of Pompeii: From Fact to Fiction and Film.”  Professor Winkler took us through a whirlwind tour of receptions of Pompeii across the centuries and via a range of media, from books to the stage to the movie screen.  The lecture kicked off a number of events throughout the week, during which Professor Winkler visited classes, met with students and faculty, and presented a rare Italian film of Vergil’s Aeneid to members of Eta Sigma Phi on Wednesday.  Many thanks to Professor McHugh, who arranged the visit, and to other departments across campus who assisted in planning and hosting Professor Winkler!

Source

The ruined Roman city of Pompeii continues to yield secrets, this time in a book by a Sydney University academic in the first systematic study of human bone remains.

Resurrecting Pompeii by Dr Estelle Lazer, archaeologist at Sydney University, was launched earlier this month.

The book discusses the information gained from looking at the skeletal remains of victims of the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Although Pompeii has been continuously studied since 1748, early scholars were seduced by the more glamorous artefacts and wall paintings yielded by the site. The less attractive evidence, the bones, was largely ignored.

Until Dr Lazer’s work, there had not been a systematic study into victim profiling information that could be gathered from studying bones, including sex, age, general health and height and population affinities.

Dr Lazer found that, contrary to previous thinking, Pompeii’s victims were not mainly the infirm, women, children and the aged. “The bones look like a normally distributed population sample,” Dr Lazer said.

A close study of bone remains also indicate the average lifespan was much longer than previously thought. Dr Lazer also discovered the incidence of age-related diseases were at levels similar to today’s world.

In October, Dr Lazer will begin a study to identify sustainable design practices and techniques from Ancient Roman architecture that can be applied to modern design.

http://sydney-central.whereilive.com.au/news/story/sydney-academic-uearths-the-secret-of-pompeiis-bones/