Secrets of Pompeii’s survivors, revealed,
Italy’s Mount Vesuvius famously erupted in AD 79, killing thousands of people and leaving the nearby city of Pompeii in ruins.
According to popular narrative, in the following 1,500 years until its rediscovery, people stayed away in the fear that the volcano would blow again.
However, scientists now say that this wasn’t actually the case.
New excavations reveal construction of fire pits and cooking areas and the discovery of numerous table and fire pottery, dating from the end of the 1st century AD until the 5th century AD.
This shows that people lived in the ruined city in the 400 years after the eruption of AD 79, according to the experts at Pompeii Archaeological Park.
This brave new wave of inhabitants was likely aware of the destructive potential of Vesuvius – and fearful that something similar would happen again.
In this way, they’re comparable to the modern-day Italians who live in the immediate vicinity of Mount Vesuvius.
The more than three million people in its shadow could be killed if an eruption of that scale happened again.
Pompeii was home to more than 20,000 people before the cataclysmic event, around 2,000 of whom are thought to have lost their lives.
The eruption buried Pompeii and its inhabitants beneath a thick layer of pumice and ash, famously preserving the bodies before they eventually decayed.
Despite buildings being obliterated, some survivors who could not afford to start a new life elsewhere are believed to have returned to live in the devastated area, the researchers explain.
It is possible some were hoping to recover valuable items and personal effects buried in the rubble that were owned by the earlier residents.
Survivors may have occupied upper floors of old houses left standing, while ground floors were converted into cellars and caves where ovens and mills were built.
But generally Pompeii 2.0 would have been a fairly basic and ‘informal’ settlement where people lived in ‘precarious conditions’.
Initially, people lived in a kind of ‘ash desert’, but vegetation soon flourished again.
Pompeii 2.0 probably lacked infrastructure and services typical of a Roman city – such as sanitation, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health.
Gabriel Zuchtriegel, archeologist and director of the historic site, compared it with a modern-day ‘favela’ – a Brazilian word referring to a slum or shantytown.
‘Thanks to the new excavations, the picture is now clearer – post-79 Pompeii re-emerges, more than a city, a precarious and grey agglomeration, a kind of camp, a favela among the still recognisable ruins of the Pompeii that once was,’ he said.
Although the theory that people returned to Pompeii shortly after 79 AD is not new, it has been confirmed by the new excavations, although it’s unclear how many people lived there.
The number of people who settled there ‘must have varied greatly’, a spokesperson for Pompeii Archaeological Park told the Daily Mail.
‘Reoccupation probably began almost immediately after the eruption, perhaps in the following months or at least within a few years,’ they said.
Mr Zuchtriegel thinks the reoccupation of the city has been largely overlooked or ignored because most studies focus on the famous eruption.
‘Faint traces of the site’s reoccupation were literally removed and often swept away without any documentation,’ he said. ‘The momentous episode of the city’s destruction in 79 AD has monopolised the memory.’
By the fifth century, Pompeii was completely abandoned and remained largely undisturbed until its rediscovery in the late 16th century.
In the 19th century, plaster casts were made of the victims using the technique developed by the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli.
Today, it’s estimated as much as third of the lost city, equating to 22 hectares, has still to be cleared of volcanic debris.
Mount Vesuvius, meanwhile, is still considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.
It is still active and could erupt again – but predicting when volcanoes will blow is an extremely difficult task for volcanologists.
Apart from being potentially fatal again for Italians living in the Bay of Naples, such an eruption could also affect aviation passengers.
In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius’ plume of ash and gas reached 21 miles (34km) in height, more than triple the cruising altitude of most commercial jets.
How Pompeii and Herculaneum were wiped off the map by devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago
What happened?
Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year AD 79, burying the cities of Pompeii, Oplontis, and Stabiae under ashes and rock fragments, and the city of Herculaneum under a mudflow.
Mount Vesuvius, on the west coast of Italy, is the only active volcano in continental Europe and is thought to be one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.
Every single resident died instantly when the southern Italian town was hit by a 500°C pyroclastic hot surge.
Pyroclastic flows are a dense collection of hot gas and volcanic materials that flow down the side of an erupting volcano at high speed.
They are more dangerous than lava because they travel faster, at speeds of around 450mph (700 km/h), and at temperatures of 1,000°C.
An administrator and poet called Pliny the younger watched the disaster unfold from a distance.
Letters describing what he saw were found in the 16th century.
His writing suggests that the eruption caught the residents of Pompeii unaware.
He said that a column of smoke ‘like an umbrella pine’ rose from the volcano and made the towns around it as black as night.
People ran for their lives with torches, screaming and some wept as rain of ash and pumice fell for several hours.
While the eruption lasted for around 24 hours, the first pyroclastic surges began at midnight, causing the volcano’s column to collapse.
An avalanche of hot ash, rock and poisonous gas rushed down the side of the volcano at 124mph (199kph), burying victims and remnants of everyday life.
Hundreds of refugees sheltering in the vaulted arcades at the seaside in Herculaneum, clutching their jewelry and money, were killed instantly.
As people fled Pompeii or hid in their homes, their bodies were covered by blankets of the surge.
While Pliny did not estimate how many people died, the event was said to be ‘exceptional’ and the number of deaths is thought to exceed 10,000.
What have they found?
This event ended the life of the cities but at the same time preserved them until rediscovery by archaeologists nearly 1700 years later.
The excavation of Pompeii, the industrial hub of the region and Herculaneum, a small beach resort, has given unparalleled insight into Roman life.
Archaeologists are continually uncovering more from the ash-covered city.
In May archaeologists uncovered an alleyway of grand houses, with balconies left mostly intact and still in their original hues.
Some of the balconies even had amphorae – the conical-shaped terra cotta vases that were used to hold wine and oil in ancient Roman times.
The discovery has been hailed as a ‘complete novelty’ – and the Italian Culture Ministry hopes they can be restored and opened to the public.
Upper stores have seldom been found among the ruins of the ancient town, which was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius volcano and buried under up to six meters of ash and volcanic rubble.
Around 30,000 people are believed to have died in the chaos, with bodies still being discovered to this day.
