Casts of the bodies of people buried under a crust of molten ash, a 2,000-year-old loaf of bread with the baker’s stamp still visible, gold jewellery, sculptures, mosaics, and an entire garden room showing frescoes of ideal plants. Archaeologists who began excavations in 1748 discovered all this and more at sites where the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum flourished before one of its most catastrophic eruptions buried the towns, sealing them in a time capsule.u00a0

One of the works, Portrait of Terentius Nero and his wife, which is on display at the exhibitionu00a0