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Frozen
Pompeii was buried under four to six metres of ash and pumice
Pompeii was a wealthy town of 10,000 to 20,000 residents when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD buried it under 4 to 6 metres of volcanic ash and pumice. It offers a snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried.
An earthquake
A severe earthquake in 62 had the Forum rebuilt before the eruption
On 5 February 62 a severe earthquake did considerable damage, particularly to Pompeii. Between 62 and the eruption in 79, most rebuilding was private, but the public sector took the chance to improve buildings and the city plan, for example in the Forum.
“...were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania”
Pliny the Younger, on earth tremors
Rediscovery
In 1592 an aqueduct digger found painted walls and kept quiet
In 1592 the architect Domenico Fontana, digging an underground aqueduct, ran into ancient walls covered with paintings and inscriptions, but kept the finding secret. Excavations began in 1748, and on 20 August 1763 an inscription showed that the city was Pompeii.
The casts
Giuseppe Fiorelli filled the voids in the ash with plaster
Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations in 1863. He realised that voids in the ash were spaces left by decomposed bodies, and devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to recreate the forms of the people caught in the eruption. A clear resin is now used instead.
The eruption
The eruption lasted two days, and the first phase let most people escape
The eruption lasted two days. The first phase was about 18 hours of pumice rain, which allowed most inhabitants to escape; approximately 1,150 bodies have been found on site. Later, pyroclastic flows began near the volcano, scorching and dense ash clouds that knocked down structures in their path.
Day 7, morning
Next is House of the Faun.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Pompeii, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.