Vesuvius 1, Pompeii 0.

Yesterday my friend and I went on an AUR trip to Pompeii, the city of ruins. It was built beginning in 600BC and was abandoned and forgotten about following the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD. I suppose I would also abandon it after 3,000 ft. of the aforementioned volcano exploded and landed on the city. Archeologists are the only ones who won in that situation, because the debris and ash preserved the city for the next 1600 years. Excavation of the city began in the 17th Century, but some 50 acres have yet to be uncovered. Two indoor theaters and a large outdoor amphitheater were uncovered and restored. The acoustics in the smaller covered theater were planned so that the voice of a person standing in the center would be amplified throughout the building. So, no need to shout.

As a result of the preservation, original murals, stones, pots, and other artifacts have been collected.

As well as the bodies of those citizens who were not able to make it out in time and were asphyxiated by the gas. Plaster was poured into holes when they were discovered thereby perfectly casting bodies (and tree trunks). Both of which you can see in this picture:


Some of them still had bones and teeth:

Now that I've thoroughly disgusted you, I will tell you about their city. The streets have a series of alternating houses and stores. You can tell which ones are stores because they have grooves in the stones where sliding doors were, and some of them have counters used for holding vats of wine.



There are pedestrian crosswalks, but instead of white lines, they have huge rounded stones, because there was an awful lots of sewage and excrement to avoid stepping through. Each crosswalk had a specific distance between the stones so that visitors to Pompeii had to rent special carts in order to fit through and bring their goods to the city center to sell. Genius. Below I demonstrate how to cross the road (Vesuvius is in the background):

All in all it was a fun trip but I must say the gift shop was very disappointing. I was hoping to get a reproduction of one of the plaster bodies, but all they had were postcards and heavily over priced books.