Italy's timeless ancient treasures...
the Etruscan ruins and tombs in Tarquinia
and Pompeii's sculptures, glass vessels, and silver housewares are amazingly contemporary.
Sometimes the sculptures could have been the man next door...
The people in Pompeii at the time of Christ used beautiful silver spoons, bowls, salt shakers...
even colanders that would look at home in our kitchens.
I think the designs are stunning, don't you?
I would exchange my plastic colander for this elegant metal one in a heartbeat.
What intricate patterns and techniques those ancient people had mastered! Their lives were not as different from ours as we think.
Notice the elephant heads on the elaborate coaster below. Italians were familiar with elephants, tigers, and other exotic animals and they had medical instruments that were surprisingly sophisticated.
Their techniques with glass and ceramics and metals in the first century were amazingly advanced.
It was not the primitive life we imagine!
The Etruscans in pre-Roman times had wonderfully vivid glassware and fine gold and ceramics, too.
I meandered for hours and marveled at the timelessness of the Italian treasures.
No wonder they look so splendidly classic today in their fine leather shoes and perfectly tailored clothing.
The Italians have quite a history.
