Pompeii (/pɒmˈpeɪi/)
was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples in the Campania region of
Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompeii. Pompeii, along with
Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale,
Stabiae), was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and
pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Many of the
inhabitants were also buried before they could escape.
In 79 CE, volcanic Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii, Italy. Hidden from the world beneath pumice and ash, it was all but forgotten for nearly 1,500 years. But that changed in 1738 when excavation workers discovered the site preserved beneath dust and debris. Thus, the preserved bodies of Pompeii were born.
The ruined city remained frozen in time until it was discovered by a surveying engineer in 1748. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were entombed in the ash and decayed away, making natural molds; and excavators used these to make plaster casts, unique and often gruesome figures from the last minutes of the catastrophe. The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provides a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially, contrasting with the formal language of the classical writers.
The eruption of Vesuvius of AD 79 unfolded in two phases: a Vesuvian eruption that lasted eighteen to twenty hours and produced a fall of pumice and ashes southward ...
By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end the next day, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash. About 2,000 people were dead. Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was not much left to find.
Until now it's been widely assumed that most of the victims were asphyxiated by volcanic ash and gas. But a recent study says most died instantly of extreme heat, with many casualties shocked into a sort of instant rigor mortis.
BODIES AT POMPEII
In 1860, Pompeii's director of excavations Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a way to, in a sense, bring them back to life by creating plaster casts out of the voids left by the decay of organic materials in the hardened ash and pumice.
To create the preserved bodies at Pompeii, Fiorelli and his team poured plaster into soft cavities in the ash, which were about 30 feet beneath the surface. These cavities were the outlines of bodies, and they retained their forms despite the soft tissue decomposing over time.
The plaster filled in the spaces formerly occupied by soft tissue.
A common misconception is that the plaster bodies are empty. But the cavities the bodies left were not shells in the ash waiting for the plaster. In fact, they were soft spots that still held the bones of the cadavers. When the plaster filled the soft ash, the bones were enclosed. The bodies of Pompeii are even more lifelike than they appear.
BODIES AT POMPEII.
Famous Mother Child Bodies.
In 79 CE, volcanic Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii, Italy. Hidden from the world beneath pumice and ash, it was all but forgotten for nearly 1,500 years. But that changed in 1738 when excavation workers discovered the site preserved beneath dust and debris. Thus, the preserved bodies of Pompeii were born.
The ruined city remained frozen in time until it was discovered by a surveying engineer in 1748. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were entombed in the ash and decayed away, making natural molds; and excavators used these to make plaster casts, unique and often gruesome figures from the last minutes of the catastrophe. The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provides a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially, contrasting with the formal language of the classical writers.
The eruption of Vesuvius of AD 79 unfolded in two phases: a Vesuvian eruption that lasted eighteen to twenty hours and produced a fall of pumice and ashes southward ...
By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end the next day, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash. About 2,000 people were dead. Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was not much left to find.
Until now it's been widely assumed that most of the victims were asphyxiated by volcanic ash and gas. But a recent study says most died instantly of extreme heat, with many casualties shocked into a sort of instant rigor mortis.
BODIES AT POMPEII
In 1860, Pompeii's director of excavations Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a way to, in a sense, bring them back to life by creating plaster casts out of the voids left by the decay of organic materials in the hardened ash and pumice.
To create the preserved bodies at Pompeii, Fiorelli and his team poured plaster into soft cavities in the ash, which were about 30 feet beneath the surface. These cavities were the outlines of bodies, and they retained their forms despite the soft tissue decomposing over time.
The plaster filled in the spaces formerly occupied by soft tissue.
A common misconception is that the plaster bodies are empty. But the cavities the bodies left were not shells in the ash waiting for the plaster. In fact, they were soft spots that still held the bones of the cadavers. When the plaster filled the soft ash, the bones were enclosed. The bodies of Pompeii are even more lifelike than they appear.
BODIES AT POMPEII.
Famous Mother Child Bodies.
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