Pompeii - The Last Day

[sonic]

Excellent graphic of the last day of Pompeii.  Well worth a look.

 

http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/watch-the-destruction-of-pompeii-by-mount-vesuvius-re-created-with-computer-animation-79-ad.html

[caesar novus]

That reminds me of documentaries that chisel away at that Pliny-based theme, and anyway weren't his observations a fair ways away from Pompeii and on the next day? His uncle experiences of the day before came second hand and not exactly in Pompeii? Wiki even reminds us of considerable archeo evidence that the town was actually buried 3 months later.

 

So I turn to Mary Beard to synthesize archeo evidence although with maybe too much taste for upsetting cherished assumptions. In http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/campania/pompeii/articles/Mary-Beards-Pompeii-guide-a-trip-back-to-AD-79/ she sez:

 

Not that Pompeii is a city "frozen in time". The eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the town in AD 79 wasn't quite as devastating as it is sometimes cracked up to be. This wasn't an ordinary little town going about its everyday business as usual – when suddenly, with no warning at all, it was covered in debris from the volcano and preserved as if in aspic. Vesuvius had been rumbling for days, if not weeks.

 

Most of the population, perhaps more than 17,000 out of an original 20,000 or so, managed to escape – taking their prized possessions with them. If Pompeian houses today look under-furnished, that's partly because the owners had loaded their best furniture on a cart and scarpered.

 

They weren't all so lucky. The old, the ill and the hopelessly optimistic (or stupid) seem to have sat it out

 

The last bit was even challenged recently by cat scans in a documentary where she appeared unusually subdued. Most of the plaster casts, that had appeared to show the old and female, beggars and slaves, etc... had a few teeth, bone, and clothing remains that indicated healthy, wealthy, twenty year old males. Security contingent or exploiters?

Edited August 24, 2016 by caesar novus