Pompeii @National Museum of Singapore

National Museum of Singapore had open house on the 5th Nov, for Deepavali. Free entrance to the galleries. =)
For those who takes public transport (like myself), alight at Dhoby Ghaut MRT and look out for the sign at the station to see which exit to head for. It's pretty simple actually. Walk out at the suitable exit, and you will see The Cathay, Singapore Arts School on your left, and YMCA on your right. Head towards the YMCA direction and you'll see the Presbyterian Church. Walk onwards somemore, and you will see the SMU on your left and National Museum of Singapore infront.

National Museum of Singapore

The building is hard to miss. It was drizzling slightly on the day of visit. So the color of the shots turned out to be grayish.

it says the earliest block was opened in 1887

Special Exhibition - Pompeii: Life in a Roman Town 79CE

awesome high ceiling with stained glass

Wanted to see the Pompeii exhibition, and a friend who was there earlier said need to queue up, so off I went in search for the queue. Saw a queue and stood in line. About 10 minutes later, quite a number of people joined the queue after me. While waiting, took this video:

nice backdrop for pictures inside the museum

free entry, yay

Waited in line for 20-30 minutes, before allowed into the gallery. Visitors were given a square hardware, and earphone. Hang the device on your neck, and wear the earphone, and press the number button and click on 'Go'. There will be a voice narration to tell you more about the items on display. Sometimes it's just textual. Quite cool, but was kinda heavy too. The older folks seemed to have some difficulty using it, and I spied one grandson helping his grandparents to use this device. ;) Whether or not the grandparents knows English is another issue.

After walking about for 10 minutes, I still don't see Pompeii. I called my friend, and turned out that I was at the wrong queue. -_-''' The exhibition queue stops at 5pm and all exhibition ends at 6pm. It was 330pm then. Still have enough time to re-queue.

So toured a little on Singapore history and took a few shots.

Dr Sun Yat Sen

Letters from Sir Stamford Raffles with regards to dinner invitation

painting depicting early Singapore

So after Singapore history, I went to queue again. Luckily, the queue moved at a faster speed as compared to previous gallery.

exhibition ends at 23 Jan 2011

The 'CE' stands for 'Common Era'. A numbering system for our calendar year devised by a monk. Pompeii is a Roman town buried by volcano lava/ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted. This exhibition offered a glimpse of ancient civilisation.

The exhibit offered a glimpse of the lives of Pompeiians during that era. With regards to food, Pompeiians had something similar to our fish sauce today, and that's 'garum' which was essential flavoring in ancient Roman cooking.

carbonized garum

The Romans liked to paint directly onto the walls, and these are known as 'fresca'.

fresca of Bacchus, the god of wine

wine vessel

gladiator - shoulder guard

shield and lamp

gold coins

However, the thing that I remember most about Pompeii, is its destruction. If not wrong, I think I saw the movie Pompeii: The Last Day (BBC) many years back.


In 1860, Fiorelli discovered that the voids in the ash layer contained human remains during his excavation work. He realized that these were spaces left by decomposed bodies. Hence, he devised a plaster injection technique to preserve the forms of the victims.

cast of a guard dog

cast of a woman

the terror felt...

Pompeii ended in a day. Life is short. Live it with no regrets.