The puzzle shows part of a series of famous frescoes in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. The frescos show some sort of religious ritual (perhaps an initiation), but there are many interpretations. The title, Lustratio, denotes an ancient purification ritual.
I have another puzzle of the same fresco with a slightly different perspective, where the two people on the left of the image are missing but instead, there are others visible to the right of the seated woman.
My local puzzle shop, lautapelit.fi, also have their own puzzle brand. I’ve done candy collages before, but for once, I know almost all of the candies and what they taste like 🙂
The quality was not the best, unfortunately. Pieces sometimes fit where they don’t belong, although with an image like this that’s not a problem. There was some variations in basic piece shape, but the large majority of the pieces were of the two-tabs-opposite type. The finish was waxy, and all in all, it reminds me of Gibson puzzles.
I can’t resist presenting some of the candies:
Da-Capo is dark chocolate with a dash of rum, and it’s been around since 1916. Tsinuskitoffee is cream toffee, and while it’s probably not as old as Da-Capo, I can’t remember a time without it.
Two types of salmiak, often described as salty liquorice. Salmiak is available in the Nordic countries, Holland, Belgium, and in the north of Germany (I even saw Finnish salmiak in a supermarket in Dortmund), but it’s unknown in much of the world. It contains ammonium chloride and is not good for your blood pressure, but it’s soooo good! Finns love salmiak, and it’s one of the things many Finns living abroad miss the most. There’s even an association for salmiak fans, The Finnish Salty Liquorice Association. Salmiak is a bit of an acquired taste, many foreigners find it hard to get into 🙂
This is what you might call granny candy. Pectus (“chest” in Latin) are mints (the text on the box promises that they will refresh your mouth and breath), and Pax (“peace” in Latin) are a kind of liquorice pastilles (drops?). Both of these could reliably be found at my grandmother’s, and I would be surprised to hear from anyone my age whose Finnish grandmother did not provide these essentials.
Leijona (lion) drops with tar flavour have been around since 1933. “Sisu” is a Finnish word denoting grit and resilience, supposedly a national trait for Finns. The candy called Sisu (written in Gothic script) is similar to the Pax drops, and it has been in production since 1928.
This could only end one way: with a trip to the supermarket 🙂
I managed to get a puzzle roll and pulled the light pieces in the bottom right-hand corner. Going well so far, but I suspect it’s about to get a whole lot harder 🙂
I decided to start on the 18 000-piece sunset-puzzle! It’s my first ever 18 000-piece puzzle, the largest one so far was 10 000 pieces. It comes in four bags of 4500 pieces.
I had planned on grabbing a bag to start with at random, without knowing which corner I would start with, but turns out the bags are marked! I took A, so starting with palm trees and a temple.
First I spread out all the pieces on tree large pieces of cardboard. At the same time I pulled the edge pieces.
First connections.
One section fits on my table, and my plan is to assemble each on a large Ravensburger Puzzle Roll and then roll it up. I only have two rolls, and both of those are in Dortmund, but I’ll try to find one in Helsinki. I’ll get the last one in Germany, I can get them cheaper there.
A puzzle from the Kaj Stenvall Collection, with a cranky duck in a boat. This has only pieces of the basic shape with two tabs opposite, and it makes a big difference. There are a lot more candidates for each spot when you can’t rule any pieces out on basic shape. While the quality is pretty good, I had some cases where I had placed a piece wrong, and only noticed after I couldn’t get any further. It was possible to identify the wrongly placed pieces, but I had to look really closely.
The trees were the most difficult part.
Here’s a close-up of the duck from the box. You can see the texture of the canvas, which is a great help while puzzling. You can’t see it in the really dark parts, though.
Another puzzle I barely remember 🙂
Quick and easy Castorland 500-piece puzzle. Nice, if unspectacular. Only the red tree on the right was a bit tricky.
This image is an ancient Roman fresco from Stabiae (a town near Pompeii that got destroyed at the same time). It’s very beautiful, but man was it difficult! You would think that the female figure at least would have been easy to pick out, but somehow wasn’t. I don’t have this anymore, but looking at it now I almost wish I had kept it.
I spent an entire day and much of the night on this, and managed to finish it!
The German title of the puzzle is “Colourful stones”, without that I probably wouldn’t have worked out what’s actually depicted 🙂
The bits with green and blue were the most difficult.
I used to get all the puzzles I could find with images related to ancient Greece and Rome. (Before I became an engineer I studied Latin and ancient Greek.) Sometimes this got me into some unpleasant puzzling experiences, but this was nice, if conventional.
Puzzler1909 