Memento Mori from Pompeii

by Weston Westmoreland

Title

Memento Mori from Pompeii

Artist

Weston Westmoreland

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Memento Mori mosaic from Pompeii, 30 BC - 14 AD.

Detail of one of the amazing mosaics recovered from the doomed city of Pompeii, known as the Memento Mori (remember you will die).

This mosaic represents the Wheel of Fortune which, as it turns, can make the rich poor and the poor rich, with death never far and life hanging by a thread: when it breaks, the soul (the butterfly) flies off. And thus are all made equal.

This image was displayed in a triclinium (a formal dining room in a Roman building). This originally Greek topic presents death as the great leveler who cancels out all differences of wealth and class.The whole composition hangs from a level with a plumb line, the instrument used by masons. The weight is the skull (death).

Suspended from the arms of the level in perfect balance by death, are wealth and power on the left (the scepter and purple) and poverty on the right (the beggar’s scrip and stick). The theme was intended to remind diners of the fleeting nature of material fortune.

More amazing images from Ancient Civilizations one copy-paste away at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/ancient+civilizations

Weston Westmoreland

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July 10th, 2020

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