Pompeii

Pompeii was a Roman town in Campania, Italy. The town was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, an event that buried it under a deep layer of volcanic debris.

At the time of its destruction the population of Pompeii stood between 10,000 and 20,000.

Pompeii lies in Campania, Italy, southeast of Naples, at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius and north of the mouth of the Sarnus (Sarno) River. The town stood at the foot of Vesuvius, the mountain whose eruption buried it in 79 CE. Vesuvius itself has a typical frusto-conical shape, with its highest peak reaching 1,277 metres. Its crater currently has a diameter of 450 metres and a depth of 300 metres. The volcano's last eruption occurred in 1944.

Vesuvius is the only active volcano in continental Europe. It forms part of a large volcanic area formed nearly 2 million years ago. Its current shape results from a constant succession of explosive and effusive eruptions in the last 25,000 years. Explosive eruptions classified as plinian or subplinian, named after Pliny the Younger who first described the phenomenon, include those of 79 AD that destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia and Oplonti.

In the centuries preceding the eruption of 79 AD, the area around Vesuvius underwent significant uplift accompanied by seismic events and degassing, all phenomena connected to the deep recharge of magma.

The earliest settlement at Pompeii belonged to Oscan-speaking descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Campania, and their village stood near the mouth of the Sarnus River. In the archaic period of the 7th to 6th centuries BCE the town underwent considerable urban development and was defended by a wall that was over 3 kilometres long.

In 308 BCE, two years after its territory had been destroyed by the Romans, the cities in the Sarno Valley concluded a treaty with Rome — the first historical evidence concerning Pompeii, as told by Livy.

Pompeii's incorporation into the Roman order followed the Social War, during which the town sided with the coalition of rebels and was attacked by Sulla in 89 BCE; along the north-west sector of the walls the holes left by projectiles hurled from catapults are still visible. After 89 BCE a colony of Roman veterans was established under Publius Sulla, and Latin replaced Oscan as the official language. The settlement of veterans is also described as Sulla's colony of Venus, set up in 80 BCE with the re-settling of 4-5,000 legionaries in the town.

Civic life in the colony was not untroubled. A riot in the amphitheater between the Pompeians and the Nucerians in 59 CE is reported by Tacitus, and the Senate punished the town with a ten-year ban on gladiatorial contests. An earthquake in 62 CE did great damage in both Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the cities had not yet recovered when final destruction overcame them 17 years later.

The eruption that destroyed Pompeii occurred on 24 August 79 CE, the date traditionally accepted, though some scholars believe the event came later in the year, possibly in October or November. A partial inscription discovered at the site in 2018 CE suggests the eruption of 79 CE was actually some time in mid-October. Most archaeologists now hold that the accepted reading of the manuscripts is wrong, and that the correct date was about 24 October.

As recent studies and discoveries suggest, on the 24th of August or October in 79 CE Vesuvius poured down a rain of lapilli and stone fragments onto Pompeii, and the eruption lasted until the next day, causing roofs to collapse and mowing down the first victims. A column of volcanic material rose to a height of 14 km, releasing a shower of lapilli and pumice that the wind began to deposit on Pompeii and the neighbouring towns. Those trapped in the first phase were buried by a shower of pumice stones and lapilli or killed by collapsing roofs, with the volcanic debris reaching about three metres in height. At 7.30 on the day after the eruption began, an extremely violent release of toxic gas and glowing ash devastated the town and penetrated everywhere, taking anyone attempting to escape by surprise and making any kind of defence useless.

Pompeii remained buried under a layer of pumice stones and ash 19 to 23 feet (6 to 7 metres) deep, and the city’s sudden burial served to protect it for the next 17 centuries from vandalism, looting, and the destructive effects of climate and weather. When the blackness finally thinned and day returned, everything had been transformed and covered with a deep layer of ashes, like snow. Herculaneum, Stabiae, Torre Annunziata and other nearby communities were destroyed as well. Excavations at Pompeii have found the remains of over one thousand victims of the 79 AD eruption.

The work followed a fortunate discovery of certain finds in the vicinity of Civita, which refocused the attention of the Bourbon excavations to this area. The time was not yet ripe, and it needed to wait until 1748 when King Charles III of Bourbon, after ten years of explorations at Herculaneum, decided to excavate on the Civita hill, where structures had emerged. The ruins were initially believed to be the city of Stabiae, and only in 1763 were they discovered to be instead those of the ancient city of Pompeii.

Interest in the buried city had been stirred long before, when at the end of the sixteenth century Count Muzio Tuttavilla had the architect Domenico Fontana construct a canal which crossed the entirety of the Civita hill, and thus the ancient city, without realising the true value of the structures, objects and inscriptions which were revealed during the excavation. Since the excavations begun in 1748 more than 1,000 human victims have been discovered among the city’s ruins. Ancient DNA collected from the famous body casts alters the history that has been written since the once forgotten town’s rediscovery in the 1700s.

Modern intervention at the site has been organised on a large scale. The Great Pompeii Project arose from an initiative of the Italian government, which enacted Decree Law no. 34/2011 with the aim of developing a special urgent programme of conservation, maintenance, and restoration for the archaeological area of Pompeii. The comprehensive intervention across all fronts of the ancient city formed part of the work of the Great Pompeii Project, was to last approximately two years, and had a total cost of around €8.5 million. The new excavations formed part of a larger stabilisation intervention focusing on the more than 3 km of excavation fronts which run along the 22 hectares of the unexcavated area.

Since 1863 a little over a hundred casts have been made using the method perfected by Giuseppe Fiorelli. Often mistaken for petrified bodies, these casts are in fact the product of a unique process made possible by the conditions created by the eruption and by an archaeological technique that has evolved over time.

Among the locations where casts have been found is the Garden of the Fugitives, so called on account of the presence of thirteen casts of victims, all still in their original locations. The House with the Garden is known for the discovery of the charcoal inscription which changes the date of eruption, and next to its atrium is the room of skeletons, where the remains of a dozen individuals who took refuge in a vain attempt to save themselves were found. In Regio V, the Thermopolium is notable for the exceptional decoration of its painted counter, with images of a Nereid riding a hippocampus and of animals that were likely prepared and sold there.

An almost life-size frieze, known as a megalography, was unearthed in a spacious banqueting room in Insula 10 of Region IX in the central part of Pompeii, running round three sides of the room while the fourth side opens onto the garden. A permanent exhibition recounts for the first time the origin, history and technique of the plaster casts, displaying 22 casts of victims selected from the most well-preserved and clearly intelligible examples. The site's recognition rests on its completeness and extent: owing to the eruptions the archaeological remains are unparalleled anywhere in the world.

The Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 under criteria (iii), (iv) and (v). The inscribed property extends over 98.05 ha, with a buffer zone of 1,726.09 ha.

Under criterion (iii), Pompeii and Herculaneum are the only Roman cities ruins preserved in such an exceptional way and have no parallels in integrity and extent in the world.