This week you need to post something about
Vesuvio and/or Pompeii.
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Vesuvio and/or Pompeii.
Remember you can't post what someone else has already posted.
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The only known eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii (August 24, C.E. 79) is from a boy named Pliny the Young. Pliny was staying at his uncle's house when the eruption occurred. He wrote to his friend, Tacitus (a Roman historian), about the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, and described the horrible events of that day. His letter was discovered in the 16th century and provides first-hand details.
Source:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/pompeii/pliny/pliny.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/pompeii/a/PlinyPompeii.htm
Video of the letter being read:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/pompeii/pliny/video.html
When Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., people who lived in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum had advance warnings. But no one could have anticipated that the rumbling volcano would completely bury both towns with ash and pumice.
Eyewitness accounts tell us what happened. Casts made of trapped or fleeing people reveal terror-filled faces. Evidence shows people who initially fled Pompeii returned, only to be killed by Vesuvius' increasing fury. Silent for thousands of years, Pompeii and Herculaneum are now living museums of life in the Roman Empire during the first century of the Common Era.
Source:http://www.click2disasters.com/pompeii/death_of_pompeii.htm
Pompeii has close to 2.5 million visitors a year and it is the most popular tourast attraction in Italy. It is also a main source of fueling the ecomomy in Italy.
Wikipedia
The eruption of the Vesuvius, which raged from the afternoon of August 24th through to the 26th, were recorded, albeit a few years later, by Gaius Plinius Secundus, who in 79 AD was seventeen years old and staying with his uncle, an admiral in the imperial fleet and a keen naturalist. He was persuaded to narrate the events by Tacitus in two letters when the latter was acquiring material for the second part of his "Historiae".
Those last days of August had been preceded by earth tremors, a common enough phenomenon in Campania that aroused no particular apprehension. But early in the afternoon of the 24th an enormous cloud in the shape of a pine tree appeared and it changed colour continuously.
The admiral was studying the cloud, not knowing its cause, when a call for help arrived from Rectina, the wife of Tascio, who lived at the foot of Vesuvius. She found herself hemmed in by the eruption, with only the sea offering a possible route to safety. The admiral ordered the entire fleet to put to sea, intending to take off as many as possible of the numerous inhabitants along that part of the coast.
Pompeii was built in the shape of a ova. It is surrounded by seven gates that go aound the city.Streets crossed eaach other all at right angles and were paved with blocks of lava.
Pompeii's sister city is Herculaneum
Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei.
Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days on 24 August, AD 79.
Five Interesting Facts
Pompeii was discovered in the 17th century.
There were two theatres, a gladiators court, many temples, and several large pyblic baths.
They found many artifacts , most are in a museum in Naples, Italy. Naples is twenty minutes (by train) from Pompeii.
It had running water, fast food booths, and some houses had swimming pools.
They found beautiful paintings on may buildings.
The ashes from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius mixed with rain clouds to form the molds that preserved the city and its inhabitants.
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