Pompeii

Pompeii was one of my favorite sites in Europe. When we were in Israel we visited tons of tels, which are basically the ruins of ancient towns on top of hills. I thought Pompeii would be really similar but it wasn't. It was a huge sprawling metropolis compared to the sites we'd seen. It was so interesting to see how the town was laid out and to walk on the ancient streets.

Pompeii is 14 miles east of Naples and was buried in 79 AD by the eruption of Vesuvius. There have been lots of excavations and it is so well-preserved that you can really get a feel for how the town looked. We saw lots of public buildings, temples, shops, and public baths--all from about 2000 years ago!

The gate at the entrance to the town had two arches--a large one for chariots and such which was closed at night and a smaller one for pedestrians which was kept open (but guarded) through the night. In this picture Jerel and I are standing in the Forum. It's like a main street square kind of area with all the important civic buildings around it and the temple at one end.

When the town was buried by ash and pumice more than 2,000 people perished. Fascinating (but probably gruesome) plaster casts were made of some of the bodies. When the debris from the two-day volcanic eruption came through Pompeii it of course didn't fill in the spaces where people were. During the excavations they discovered many of these holes in the shapes of people. Some of them were filled with plaster and then removed so that you have a cast of what the person looked like. We saw one that was a man sitting with his hands over his face. Another was a young woman who was pregnant and probably a slave, laying face down. A third one was a dog curled up. It really made you think of what it would be like to face death. I mean I guess I've thought about it before, but I've never considered how I would be sitting or what my facial expression might be. Sorry if this is morbid to you, I just found it so intriguing.

Some day I'll get around to labeling all of the pictures on flickr and you can see lots of cool pictures from Pompeii.