 Inside a newly opened portion of Museo delle Terme, let's explore a brand-new exhibition that highlights some of the most amazing things from ancient Rome and around the Mediterranean. I'm here in these incredible halls, part of the Baths of Diocletion, which is part of Museo delle Terme. And on this occasion, this is an extraordinary exhibition of 2023 that celebrates l'estante e letterità. Instant and eternity. And together, we can explore some of the highlights of this incredible exhibition. And really, what sets off your exploration of this artwork? Well, nothing comes closer to that idea of instant and eternity than the destruction from Pompeii. And we have here two recently discovered castes of Pompeians that met their end in AD 79. So let's go explore. Let's start within this incredible setting some rooms from the Baths of Diocletion never before opened to the public. And they are an incredible setting for looking at this artwork. And this first section we'll explore is the Hall of Heroes. If there's Julius Caesar on the right, we have Vase painting depicting the heroes of Greek mythology. And here is our central protagonist, it's Ulysses himself. And he comes from the Villa of Tiberius in Sperlonga. And you have so many pieces here in this section highlighting the achievements of man. And here we have the Minotaur that was conquered by the mythological hero Theseus. From this section, we move into a porcelain that contains a beautiful vaulted ceiling from the house of Lita, Lita who gives us Castor and Pollux in Helen of Troy. And we have the belly button, the Omphalus from Delphi. And here is our true protagonist of the collection, the Keegee Tablet. And there's so many incredible pieces here. But this one is kind of, let's say, the rock star piece. This is the Keegee Tablet getting back to about the first century BCE. And the idea was at a certain point, it's lost. It's lost from the archaeological record. It's part of the Keegee collection, but it was ultimately misplaced, recently rediscovered and acquired by the state. And now for the first time, again, on display. And what it shows you is two personified figures. And we have it all written in Greek and each one is labeled. The woman on the left with the mural crown is Europa, Europe. And the one on the right is Asia or Asia. And what they're holding up is a large shield with a battle. It's a battle of the ages. It's a battle of the world. And then we have an inscription in three parts written in Greek. And it's a quotation. It's all about Alexander the Great, who he himself at his time conquered the world. And it's just an extraordinary piece. It's miniature. It's just something handheld. And that was a fascination that you have of the Greeks and the Romans to pass along to your dinner guests. This kind of artwork that you can inspect and appreciate the minute details and ultimately read the inscription and ponder, say, your own mortality or ponder how the world works. This one, as opposed to most of the tabula, the little plaques that we have with artwork depicting usually scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey that are made of limestone, this is actually carved on Giallo Antico, which is the famous yellow marble that comes from Tunisia. So it's a really precious piece of artwork that we have that is addressing some larger ideas about the world. In this portion, we continue the discussion on eternity. The cosmos was sundials. We have this wall painting with uranium, this muse associated with astronomy. And we have her surrounded by the depiction of a large bronze clock. And then we have this rather strange looking protagonist, Osiris Chronocrator. Osiris the Time Lord that creates eternity. This is not a figure that you see very often, nor do you see very often Ion, who is a representation of historical time, linear time. He's Chronos and a new guys surrounded by the Zodiac. Moving on to a section devoted to work and daily life. We have the first time on public display. This marriage chariot found in Civita Giuliana by Pompeii. This is a faithful reconstruction with the original parts made of silver and made of bronze. Here's a depiction of gladiators fighting fished out from the Tiber and here is a magnificent relief from Terracina that shows wall building with an extraordinary depiction of a crane in action. This relief is of a city, a walled city, found in the Lago di Fucino, which is in Abruzzo and you don't have many depictions of cities in marble looking like this. We pass on to this relief, an extraordinary relief of a shopkeeper who was a woman and she is depicted selling her wares, fresh fruits, rabbits, chickens and you see the crowded atmosphere of that bar. This would have been an incredible signpost telling people step inside my thermopolium, step inside my shop. This is what is for sale. Daily life continues with inscriptional evidence of an oculus. We have a vestige of a tomb facade now on display and we have extraordinary figures that come from the Villa dei Papaii outside of Herculaneum and this extraordinary piece is a treasury box and arca which would have been on prominent display inside a house in Pompeii and we can see all the bronze work that is preserved. This was something that exclaimed the importance and the means of the owner of the house. Another standout in the collection is this famous silver hoard found in 1928 in a field in Marengo near Torino. The entire weight of this collection of artwork including a bust of Lucius Veris is 28 kilos so you don't just have wonderful representations of decorative art which would have been on say a couch or part of a belt but you also just have the sheer amount of silver preserved. Pass on to more modest tombs from the Republican era as well as a mixture of various votive offerings of body parts both of men and women from the Republican times and there are so many portraits and they're coming from all over the Mediterranean but possibly the most compelling pieces that we'll find found right in Italy. Let's take a look at a few this famous piece is attributed to the first century BC the first century AD it's a rare depiction of a young black African it's made of Bijou Morato marble and quite possibly according to a new study it's ancient marble but was actually produced as late as the 17th century so we have a lot of controversy sometimes in understanding the original date and production of these works of art even though the marble is ancient maybe this piece isn't and we have this piece right here as we can see by the club and the lion skin cap we have a Hercules this is a known type but then we have the portrait what we think is a real person who's depicting himself as that hero and this was found in 2023 so another incredible aspect of this exhibition is that they're showing pieces just discovered this one made the news it was found in the appia and an extraordinary then that we have it recently restored and quickly put on display that's exciting that's turning a new page in terms of the way in which the ministry and the museums are showing to the public things that are recently found and that's another reason to underline the importance of this exhibition some people want to see this as an Emperor Dekius who sometimes appears as Hercules but more probably when we look at the particular hairstyle here the facial hair this most probably is just some wealthy individual maybe this is associated with his tomb which he's depicting himself as Hercules himself eventually immortalized after death this is the famous statue of the orator a bronze statue and an inscription in the Truscan tells us it's Alice Mattelis it was found near Perugia it was found in 1566 one of the most famous bronze statues from the Republican era what's extraordinary about each one live as we can bring you behind the scenes special access getting you into exhibitions as they happen getting you to excavation sites as they are active and we can give you new insights being on location about ancient Rome live and life throughout the Mediterranean which is absolutely extraordinary and always inspiring.