Some phenomonal silver service has been unveiled...found at Pompeii.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8616485/

Thanks for posting that Dick, very interesting. And a great excuse to revisit Pompeii.

I believe it was actually found about 5 years ago but it is just now being unveiled to the public (time for restoration and study, etc.).

Thanks for posting this Dick.
But I wonder if he was the real owner of this silver service set?

Whoever owned that silver dining set was very rich. And being rich he would have slaves and probably quite a few Freedmen clients indebted to him. So he'd have others to carry his stuff .

Being rich he would have alot of valuable things besides this silver set. His life savings in gold and silver coins locked in his bolted-down strongbox, jewelry, small gold and silver statues nic-nacs, etc.

So did a rich man flee his home and *only* take his 4 kilo (8.8lbs) silver dining set???

Or was this just one man of many carrying away his master's or patron's valuables? With the others possibly buried nearby?

Or, and the one I'm betting on , he was a looter!
And on his way out of the city he took this silver dining set left behind in a rich man's home. He made one good score and 'got outta Dodge' .

In Rome beneath the present day level in the Forum (between the Arch of Titus and the Vestal's House) and on the Palatine Hill.
Archaeologists have found on the street a couple of semi-fused bunched coins. Just small pocket change that a poor Roman citizen would have (the rich residents would have had gold & silver coins in their moneypouch). They believe looters went into these rich areas just ahead of Nero's Great Fire and after everyone had fled. The fire surrounded and trapped them, their pocket change fused and they were buried beneath the rubble which was later just built over.

Looting while facing death and destruction happens, always has and probably always will .
I just find it odd that this was all that man had on him.
Regards, Walter

Hi Walter,
That he was a thief was my husband's first impression too after I sent him the article that Dick posted.

Walter...makes for some interesting possibilities.....good point.

Amazing detail and craftmanship....especially at almost 2000 yrs old

Beautiful workmanship!

Thank you, Dick.

Dick and Walter,

So interesting. Thank you both.

Will the silver dining service be on public display? If so, where?

Woody

According the the AP...

"The pieces will go on display in 2006 at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, 18 miles north of Pompeii,"

Or, the servant WAS carrying the silver amd owner/rich boy got off with the gold and coins.
Anyway, amazing how terribly intricate the pieces are...