You might be forgiven for thinking that the
most disturbing part of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. was the sheer suddenness
of Pompeii’s destruction. But while the town’s destruction was unspeakably
tragic, the speed at which it happened wasn’t nearly the worst thing about it. Two festivals happening in the town at the
same time meant the tragedy at Pompeii ended up so much worse than it should have been. According to the book Pompeii: An Archaeological
Guide, the Pompeians were in the middle of a multi-day celebration in honor of the emperor
Augustus. Known today as the first emperor of the Roman
Empire, Augustus had passed 65 years earlier and had just been made a god — as well as
having the month of August named after him. Pompeii’s streets were filled with public
celebrations including street musicians, fortune tellers, plays, and athletic events. Many of those performers and athletes came
from outside Pompeii to take part in the event, as did the visitors and tourists who came
to see them. We can't know exactly how many extra people
were in the town at the time of its destruction, but it is certainly a lot more lives were
lost than might have happened if the eruption had happened a month later. Even worse, the day before the eruption was
Vulcanalia, the festival of the god Vulcan — otherwise known as the god of fire and
volcanoes. It wasn't so much that the people of Pompeii
didn't get a warning that Mount Vesuvius was going to erupt, because there definitely would
have been smoke, small earthquakes, and loud rumblings at the very least. It was more that, because of Vulcanalia, they
would have interpreted these signs as good omens from the god rather than warnings to
get out of Dodge. As far as the townspeople cared, these warnings
were simply signs that Vulcan was busy at his forge inside Mount Vesuvius, perfectly
happy that everyone was celebrating his special day. “We’re in Pompeii. And it’s Volcano Day.” It wasn't just the timing of the festivals
that screwed everyone over in Pompeii, though — it was also the weather. According to Perspecta Weather, the wind in
that part of Italy during August tends to blow in a southwesterly direction. If this had been the case during the eruption,
the cloud of ash and deadly gas from the volcano would have blown away from Pompeii. Sure, there still would have been the whole
heat and lava thing to contend with, but that wasn't what offed most people in the city. If the ash and gas had spread in the direction
the wind normally blew, far more people would have likely survived. But for some reason, that day the wind was
blowing to the northwest, straight towards Pompeii. Aside from dooming the town itself, this also
meant that many of the townspeople couldn't escape. Pompeii sits on a bay, and some people evidently
attempted to escape by ship. But our only eyewitness account of the tragedy,
by Pliny the Younger, says the wind was blowing "not in-shore" and stopped terrified residents,
including his own uncle, from leaving that way. Their most effective escape route was blocked
off because of a bizarre change in the weather. In fact, the nature of the wind that day was
so bizarre that it has caused some historians to think we have the date of the eruption
wrong. According to the Australian National Maritime
Museum, the unexpected wind pattern could mean the eruption took place in autumn, later
in the year than first thought. Considering many of the people of Rome lived
around 2,000 years ago, it’s easy to feel a disconnect between their lives and our own. But with Pompeii, we don't just have the skeletal
remains of those who passed— we can actually see in great detail the fear on their faces
at the moment of their deaths. The nature of the detail in these remains
makes the town’s destruction feel like so much more than just history. When Pompeii was being excavated in the early
1800s, the archaeologists realized that, when they found a skeleton, it was always surrounded
by a void in the compacted ash. The diggers started pouring plaster of Paris
into the spaces, and what emerged were essentially casts of people during the last last moments
of their lives. In essence, the archaeologists could see the
exact positions they took as the ash rained down. There are even animal casts, including one
of a dog writhing on its back, twisted as if in great pain. “We find several groups together, three
people together, four people together. It seems they passed, helping each other.” But modern technology can take this information
even further. Seeker reports that in 2015, many of these
casts were CAT-scanned. This means we now know the victims' ages,
sexes, and intimate details about their health. We can even construct accurate images of their
faces, such as a 4-year-old boy frozen in terror or a baby asleep on its mother's lap. Giovanni Babino, the head radiologist on the
project, said: "Working with these casts was extremely moving;
it felt like I was dealing with real patients." Pliny the Younger provides our only eyewitness
account of what happened on that day in Pompeii, and he didn't even write about it until more
than two decades after the event. But his account shows that witnessing the
city's destruction had a profound effect on him. Pliny was 18 and living across the bay in
Misenum when the eruption began. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, had also been
a naval commander in the early Roman Empire — and decided to sail to Pompeii to try
and rescue people. Pliny and his mother were left to escape Misenum
on their own. Eventually, they left their house because
the strength of the earthquakes made staying inside dangerous, and they had to keep shaking
off ash so they wouldn't be crushed by the weight of it. Elsewhere in the town, people began to panic
— and false rumors quickly spread about Misenum being on fire. But, according to Pliny, it was the noise
that was the worst: He wrote: "You could hear the shrieks of women, the
wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their
children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of
their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still
more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal
darkness for evermore." Pliny the Elder passed at Pompeii, having
failed to save a single life. Historians still aren’t exactly 100 percent
sure how people in Pompeii actually passed. But it's mostly accepted that, in general,
they were smothered by ash and gas, crushed when buildings collapsed, or hit and offed
by falling debris. This is why the bodies archaeologists have
found show people were largely intact when they passed. But this might not have been the case for
victims in other cities affected by the eruptions. According to National Geographic, in the cities
of Herculaneum and Oplontis, things were all the more disturbing because they were probably
hit by pyroclastic surges — catastrophic mixtures of ash, lava, and noxious gases. But the deadliest characteristics of a pyroclastic
flow are heat and speed. They can move at 50 miles an hour and reach
temperatures of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. That kind of all-consuming heat can effectively
"flash-fry a person to death." It causes a person's bodily fluids to boil
instantaneously, including those inside their brain — essentially causing their head to
explode. Within 10 minutes, all the soft tissue on
their body would vaporize. And there's strong evidence that this happened
to many of the victims in Herculaneum and Oplontis. If Egypt has taught us anything, it's that
people really do not give a toss about the sanctity of the passed— with tombs in that
country being ransacked almost as soon as they were sealed. The same is true in Pompeii. Despite it being the final resting place for
thousands of victims, all grave robbers tend to think about is how much shiny stuff is
buried with them. And the residents who fled their homes in
terror did make it easy for these thieves, since many of them grabbed all their valuables
to bring with them. Since Pompeii wasn't really rediscovered until
the 1700s, these grave robbers have remained active up to the present day. Pompeii's official website mentions archaeologists
unearthing one room and finding tunnels dug in the ash and the skeletal remains of six
individuals thrown around; damage done by humans, not a volcano. A shop was also discovered in 2016 with evidence
that looters had been there first — although thankfully they managed to miss a hoard of
gold coins found inside. In 2017, there was actually so much tomb raiding
that, for the archaeologists, it became a race to dig out new areas before they were
found by crooks. Not everyone who steals digs a tunnel, though. Some just pick stuff up when they visit as
tourists. Luckily, a lot of them come to regret that
decision. According to the Telegraph, in recent years,
authorities have been sent a hundred packages returning items pilfered as souvenirs, with
many of the repetent grave-robbers believing the objects have brought them bad luck. Perhaps the worst thing to happen to Pompeii
since the eruption was the fact that, for a long time, it wasn’t even properly taken
care of. And it wasn't the archaeologists in the 1800s
who screwed up, but those in charge of the site during the second half of the 20th century. In 2008, the Guardian reported that the Italian
government had declared a state of emergency at Pompeii. Not because the volcano was about to erupt
again, but because the historic site was in such a state of disrepair. The conditions were described as "squalid,"
with the amazing site swarmed by souvenir hawkers, fake parking attendants, and bogus
tour guides. It had few signs, even fewer security guards,
and only three bathrooms. The third of the site that was still buried
was even being used as an illegal trash dump. But more dire, according to Reuters, was the
"decades of neglect" the UNESCO World Heritage site had suffered, with visitors expressing
“shock at the site's decay." Frescoes and stones that had survived almost
2,000 years were deteriorating at an alarming rate, with thousands of pieces lost every
year. Restoration work that had started in 1978
was still nowhere near being completed. The culture minister at the time stated that
"to call the situation intolerable doesn't go far enough," and a year-long state of emergency
was quickly declared. A special commissioner was thus appointed
to try to save the site, before human laziness and selfishness could destroy Pompeii all
over again. To this day, the volcano that destroyed Pompeii
is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Mount Vesuvius made it pretty clear it wasn't
messing around when it buried numerous towns and offed thousands of people back in 79 A.D.,
but that eruption wasn't even the most destructive in terms of damage — that happened in 1631. But for some reason, the area at its base
is still regarded as prime real estate. Six million people currently live close to
Vesuvius, and according to Volcano Discovery, 3 million of them are at serious risk if it
ever erupts again. And the problem is that Vesuvius tends to
get very angry, very quickly. Unlike some volcanoes, Vesuvius doesn’t
let of small warning eruptions before the big one. Instead, this volcano tends to sit perfectly
quietly for a long time and then suddenly let off a massive, deadly eruption. It also has a much tighter timescale for eruptions
than other volcanoes, so even though it last blew in 1944, it could easily go again tomorrow. Even some super-volcanoes are considered less
dangerous than Vesuvius. The Italian government has multiple plans
in place should another eruption occur. At a minimum, 600,000 people would need to
be evacuated from the immediate risk zone on the lower slopes of the volcano. Unfortunately, it’s uncertain whether these
plans would actually be effective or not, and seems almost a given that not everyone
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