Today we will explore the well preserved ruins of the City of Pompeii. I have been lucky enough to have visited many archeological sites in Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Stonehenge, Hadrian's Wall and Bath in England. These sites are all incredible. They provide pieces to the puzzle of how the ancients lived, produced their food and drink, loved, hated, created destroyed, fought their wars and worshipped their gods.
My Egyptian voyage was life changing, both spiritually and mentally. The other sites were a more scholarly exercise.* I have been allowed to meander back to these times, to be awed by what kind of world the ancients were able to create for themselves, without the advanced technology of our age. Pompeii is no exception
Pompeii was built at the mouth of the Sarnus river, (now called Sarno) in Compania, southern Italy, between Stabiae and Herculaneum, and a few miles south of Mount Vesuvius. The city was founded by the Oscans around 600 BC, followed by the Greeks, Etuscans, Samnites and Romans. It became a Roman colony in 80 BC and a popular. seaside resort, for wealthy Romans. The population by the beginning of the Christian Era was around 20,000 souls.
The area was hit with many earthquakes throughout the years, warnings of what was to come. In 62AD great damage was wrought by a severe earthquake and on August 23, 79 AD ( There are some that say November 24th)Mount Vesuvius showed her full force by burying the towns of Stabiae and Pompeii with ash and red hot cinders and Herculaneum with a pyroclastic flow. Pompeii was buried under 10-15 feet of wet ash, Herculaneum under 75 feet of mud. This eruption also changed the route of the Sarnus River and raised the land beside the sea, leaving the city a distance away. There was also a deadly tidal wave and many of those seeking to escape the deadly fallout were killed by poisonous gases.
Well preserved by the blanket of cinders and ash, the city and its people, will fill in their pieces of the story. The eruption of Mt Vesuvius caught them at that fateful moment in time. They lay buried for 1500 years while the fallout hardened and formed a hermetic seal around the city. The last moments of some of the citizens were captured by the ash that buried them. Sometimes mixed with the melting plaster of the walls, it formed a mold around their bodies. Although the human remains have long since disintegrated, the mold when filled with plaster tells their tale.
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