POMPEI WAS OUR NEXT ADVENTURE: HERE IS A SMALL HISTORY ALONG WITH A FEW PHOTOS
Mount Vesuvius did not form overnight, of course. Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc that stretches along the convergence of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates on the Italian peninsula—it been erupting for thousands of years.
Sometime around 1995 B.C., for example, an unusually violent eruption (known today as the “Avellino eruption”) shot millions of tons of superheated lava, ash and rocks about 22 miles into the sky. That Bronze Age catastrophe destroyed almost every village, house and farm within 15 miles of the mountain.
Villagers around the volcano had long learned to live with their volatile neighbor. Even after a massive earthquake struck the Campania region in 63 A.D.—a quake that, scientists now understand, offered a warning rumble of the disaster to come—people still flocked to the shores of the Bay of Naples, and Pompeii grew more crowded every year.
The exact date of the eruption remains a matter of debate. August 24, A.D. 79, is the traditional date derived from manuscripts of Pliny the Younger’s account, but archaeological evidence has led some scholars to argue that Vesuvius erupted later that year, possibly in October. It started when a number of small earthquakes rocked the Pompeii region. The people there shrugged off the temblors since they “were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania,” according to Pliny the Younger.Then, shortly after noon on that fateful day, Mount Vesuvius erupted again. The blast sent a plume of ash, rock and scorching-hot volcanic gases so high into the sky that people could see it for hundreds of miles around.
Pliny the Younger, who watched the eruption from across the Bay of Naples, compared this “cloud of unusual size and appearance” to a pine tree that “rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches.” (Today, geologists refer to this type of volcanic blast as a “Plinean eruption.”)
As it cooled, this tower of debris drifted to earth: first the fine-grained ash, then the lightweight chunks of pumice and other rocks. It was terrifying—“I believed I was perishing with the world,” Pliny wrote, “and the world with me”—but it was not yet lethal: Most Pompeiians had plenty of time to flee, and many did.
For those who stayed behind in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns, conditions soon grew much worse. As more and more ash fell, it clogged the air, making it difficult to breathe. Buildings collapsed under overloaded roofs, but still some people remained in the city, now covered under several feet of ash.
Then, on the morning of the following day, a “pyroclastic flow”—a 100-miles-per-hour blast of superheated gas and pulverized rock—poured down the side of the mountain and vaporized everything and everyone in its path.
By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end on the second day of the eruption, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash.
Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was virtually nothing left to find. Pompeii, along with the neighboring town of Herculaneum and a number of villas in the area, was abandoned for centuries.
About 2,000 Pompeiians died in the city, but the eruption in total killed up to 16,000 people in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns and villages in the region.
Bodies of men, women, children and animals were frozen right where they’d fallen—many of the bodies uncovered later were still clutching valuable household objects they’d hoped to carry safely out of the city. Some bodies were found with their arms poignantly wrapped around children or other loved ones.
Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread. Most of the city’s buildings were intact, and everyday objects and household goods still littered the streets.
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