I have visited the ruins of Pompeii on a cloudy day with some drizzle. I thought it was a terrible day to walk among ruins and I longed for a little sun, but the truth is that I could not have had a better day. The atmosphere of this ancient Roman city is unique and on a cloudy day, and therefore with few people, full of shadows and in a gray tone, it is the best company for the sad history of Pompeii and its neighbor, Herculaneum.
We already know, the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius covered these two cities with several layers of ash. The disaster killed thousands of people but preserved the city in a wonderful state for archaeologists of our time. Today, walking through Roman streets, seeing houses, imagining everyday life and contemplating the replicas of those charred bodies freezes the blood. Much of what was found in Pompeii is today in the Secret Cabinet in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
The secret cabinet collection is made up of explicit erotic or sexual objects that were found in the Pompeii ruins. Pompeii was a city of recreation and the truth is that the Romans were not so moralistic about sex so they painted frescoes, made mosaics and very sexual and explicit objects. When Pompeii began to be excavated, everything that came to light that offended the moralism of the XNUMXth century was kept from common sight and went to the Secret Cabinet.
Archaeologists even blocked the erotic frescoes in the ruins with metal so that people could not be frightened. Panels were only open to men, never before to ladies. This remained, surprisingly, until the 60s and the content of the Secret Cabinet It was not the most popular and well-known. The Secret Cabinet was opened and closed several times over time, but in the year 2000 it was definitively opened and since 2005 the entire collection is concentrated in a room within the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.