Resurrecting Pompeii

68

The article Resurrecting Pompeii written by Doug Stewart tells the story of the last days of Pompeii. The purpose of the article was to inform, and also to drum up interest for the exhibit Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption debuting at the Chicago Field Museum during February and March. The exhibit features almost 500 objects including sculpture, jewelry, frescoes, household objects, and plaster casts of the dead, and was put together by Pompeii's archeological superintendent.

Pompeii and the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum were both destroyed in a.d. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted. Both cities were buried under volcanic rock and ash until the 18^th century. Later in 1863, Italian archeologist, Giuseppe Fiorelli discovered cavities in the hardened ash. He filled the cavities with plaster, creating lifelike casts of a Pompeiian family that died fleeing the disaster.

At the time of the eruption, Pompeii was a thriving city with a population somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people, probably due to the rich, fertile soil. The citizens grew wine and olives. Pompeii had a new aqueduct supplying water to the city. Pompeii was full of shops, street vendors, taverns, slaves, vacationers, and prostitutes. Many of the people lived very lavishly.

According to the author, if the people of Pompeii had been more geologically focused than mythology focused they may have seen the danger signs and been able to save themselves. For example, 17 years earlier a major earthquake had wiped out part of the city, and it was still being rebuilt at the time of the eruption. Also, that summer there had been a small earthquake, and later wells had gone dry for apparently no reason.

Vesuvius is still one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes. The African plate on which it rests is diving beneath the European plate. These collisions create magma. When the magma rises to the surface sulfur dioxide and other volatile gases are released, which is the volcanic eruption. Interestingly enough, 3.5 million people currently live near Vesuvius and 2 million people visit every year.

The only eyewitness account of the eruption is from seventeen-year-old Pliny the Younger. He noticed, "A cloud of unusual size and appearance" that reminded him of an umbrella pine, "for it rose to great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches" (p. 64). Pliny is describing a column of gas with tons of rock and ash being blasted from the earth at supersonic speed. The heat of the column pushed it skyward until it was almost 20 miles high. As the column cooled it spread horizontally and then began to rain down rock and ash on Pompeii. By nightfall, smoldering rocks bombarded the city causing roofs to collapse. At this point, the people who remained in Pompeii began to flee.

The city of Herculaneum lies nine miles northwest of Pompeii. Herculaneum experienced a pyroclastic surge - 1,000-degree Fahrenheit ash and gas traveling at hurricane force. Herculaneum was a smaller and wealthier city than Pompeii, with only about 5,000 citizens. Many of the citizens fled the city. Only a few dozen people's remains were found in the city. The remains of about 300 people were discovered along the sea front. There were 12 surges in all, leaving the city buried under 75 feet of rock and ash.

Included in the exhibit is a plaster cast of a young child, found with his whole family in a luxurious three-story home. The family was overpowered by ash so fine, that even the child's eyelids can be seen in the cast. Another family was found in an alleyway carrying a Cupid statuette. The people all seemed to flee weighted down by their expensive objects, family heirlooms, and good luck charms. Also included in the exhibit are gladiator helmets, gold slave bracelets, silver wine goblets, and gladiator helmets.

The author, Doug Stewart, is a free-lance writer in Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to Smithsonian Magazine, and wrote the article West African Gold in the December 2005 issue. He has done an excellent job of stirring up interest. If this exhibit comes to Florida, I would definitely pay good money to see it.