New $50 million museum to feature exhibits on Rome and Hadrian's Wall

I see the new Great North Museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK will include a Roman Empire and Egyptian gallery as well as an extensive exhibit about Hadrian's Wall. This facility also includes the restored Arbeia Roman Fort.

Incorporating exhibits from the city’s Hancock Museum and Hatton Gallery, the new museum will house internationally important collections about the natural and ancient worlds and world cultures. Entry will be free, and the museum is expected to attract more than 300,000 visitors a year.

The museum’s galleries will include one about Hadrian’s Wall, another which explores the world’s fossils and ‘Living Planet’, which incorporates a ‘Bio-Wall’. The wall explores animal habitats around the world, and includes tanks and aquaria containing live fish, snakes and insects.

There will also be galleries devoted to the Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt and ‘Natural Northumbria’, which allows visitors to discover what makes the area special in terms of flora and fauna, and undertake computer-generated ‘virtual’ trips to local sites of interest.

Groups will also be able to visit the museum’s planetarium and make use of a special study garden where they can practice archaeological techniques.

Pompeii Timeline

Current Archaeology Magazine's website offered this great timeline of development for the city of Pompeii:

8th century BC	Iron Age agricultural settlement
6th century BC	City founded by Oscans, Greeks or Etruscans City walls built. Street grid laid out First masonry building on site of House of Amarantus
4th century BC	Second phase of building on site of House of Amarantus First settlement on site of House of the Vestals Rome conquers the Bay of Naples
3rd century BC	First masonry buildings on site of House of the Vestals
218-201 BC	War against Hannibal
2nd century BC	House of the Vestals doubles in size
146 BC	Destruction of Carthage and Corinth
91 - 87 BC	Social War; Pompeii besieged
80 BC	Roman colony founded
Early 1st century BC	House of the Vestals doubles in size and is substantially rebuilt
Late 1st century BC	House 12 constructed on the site of House of Amarantus
30 BC - AD 14	Reign of first emperor, Octavian-Augustus
20s AD	House of the Vestals substantially rebuilt with fountains
AD 62	Earthquake strikes Pompeii
70s AD	House of the Vestals substantially rebuilt without piped water House of Amarantus becomes a run-down bar
AD 79	Pompeii destroyed by Vesuvius

Go to the link for an extensive article on Pompeii. Their interactive map of the site is also very interesting. For additional images of Pompeii, check out my Flickr photo set