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Published: September 18th 2017
Out on the early train...first lot through the gate at 9am....quiet to start with
Absolutely fascinating...i thought there was going to be a lot of emphasis on the humans which i thought would be macabre....however there was only small amount and the rest was about the grand city and it structures and infrastructures of 64-67hectares. Needed a good 3 hours or more. I said to Brian I feel like I've walked all across town and back.
They grew wheat, grapes, pomegranate, olives, figs all for export...the wine urns, the mill grinders. It was completely self sufficient. They had become part of the Socium of Rome (Rome being the first to create rules called civil rights and therefore civilization)...and of course all roads led to Rome.
Population at the time was estimated at 11,000 - 11,500 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, a gymnasium, and a port.
A multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study of the eruption products and victims, merged with numerical simulations and experiments, indicates that at Pompeii and surrounding towns heat was the main cause of death of people, previously believed to have died by ash suffocation. The results of the study,
published in 2010, show that exposure to at least 250 °C (482 °F) hot surges (known as pyroclastic flows) at a distance of 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the vent was sufficient to cause instant death, even if people were sheltered within buildings.
The site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for more than a millennium because of the long lack of air and moisture due to 25 layers of ash.
The amphitheatre is the oldest in the world and lucky Pink Floyd released their album 'live at Pompeii' from here.
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John
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The pictures take me back....
Great pictures guys....I hope you enjoyed Pompeii as much as we did....If you get a chance, try and visit Herculaneum...After we came back to the UK various people told me that Herculaneum was better preserved than Pompeii.....Not sure of the logistics though....2 weeks tomorrow.... :)