# Pompeiian
Sexuality
#
The name
Pompeiian will forever be linked with two things, disaster and decadence. This city
has been portrayed time and again as a place of sexual freedom even debauchery.
There are some truth in the idea.
The archaeologists
in the 19th century were scandalized by what they found. This city
was full with portrays but in 1875 excavators found this place and promptly cut
from the wall and removed all of the paintings from the walls to the museum in
Naples. Dozens of pieces considered too explicit for public display were
forcibly removed.
For much of
the last century, this collections been off-limits to the public and as late as
1980s women weren’t allowed to see some of its contents. Its called “The secret
cabinet”.
“So here is
the contents of a bedroom they have displayed a pared, they’ve decorated walls
very much like Pompeiin bedroom and here they put the scenes of love making in
which the lovers are on a bed and even you can see his little marble plaque and
again you have got the bed with the lovers on it”, said Andrew Wallace.
This is
where the paintings hangs now. In the modern era it’s been locked away but it
hung in the bankers house for one purpose only, it was to be displayed. It took
pride of place between a dining room and a bedroom. Guests weren’t meant to see
it and see their hosts as a man of taste and refinement.
“Every wellborn
Roman that you have proper picture collection, you had to also have to find
erotic paintings even if they were very explicit. So what we have is a painting
of luxury lovemaking, not in a private place, not scrolled away somewhere but
instead writing in view of all the guests were invited to the house”.
Sexual
imagery wasn’t only to be found in a fine art, you’d be exposed to it simply
walking down the street.
“Here we
find the representation that’s almost everywhere in Pompeiin and it is the
phallus. When excavators first found it they thought that had meant that this
was a house of a prostitution or more implausibly that had pointed the way to a
house of prostitution. But in fact this particular establishment is of all
things, a bakery. In this bakery used the symbol of the phallus like many
businesses at Pompeiin to signal good fortune and to bring prosperity to the
business. Perhaps even to make the bread rise”
Adapted :
Nation Geography
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