One Never Knows About Volcanoes!
It’s certainly not something celebrated annually but the month of August is remembered for the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano at the Bay of Naples in southern Italy, on August 24, 79 A.D., destroying the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum. The mountain’s peak spewed out a ten-mile mushroom cloud of ash, smoke and pumice, which rained down on the citizens, killing thousands, and turning day into night. Unfortunately for Pompeii, that wasn’t the end of it. Next came molten lava, which buried the remaining residents seven feet deep!
The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were never rebuilt and largely forgotten in the course of history. In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.
In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompeii, including merchants, manufacturers and farmers who exploited the rich soil of the region with numerous vineyards and orchards. None suspected that the black fertile earth was the legacy of earlier eruptions of Mount Vesuvius.
Much of what we know about the eruption comes from an account by Pliny the Younger, who was living along the Bay of Naples when Vesuvius exploded. In two letters to the historian Tacitus, he told of how “people covered their heads with pillows, the only defense against a shower of stones,” and of how “a dark and horrible cloud charged with combustible matter suddenly broke and set forth. Some bewailed their own fate. Others prayed to die.” Pliny, only 17 at the time, escaped the catastrophe and later became a noted Roman writer and administrator.
According to his account, the eruption lasted 18 hours. Pompeii was buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice, and the nearby seacoast was drastically changed. Some residents later returned to dig out their destroyed homes and salvage their valuables, but many treasures were left and then forgotten.
In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue on the site of Herculaneum. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have gone on nearly without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed the excavation of Herculaneum, retrieving numerous art treasures, including bronze and marble statues and paintings.
The remains of 2,000 men, women and children were found at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation, their bodies were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. Later, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains, leaving a kind of plaster mold behind. Archaeologists who found these molds filled the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of the victims of Vesuvius. The rest of the city is likewise frozen in time, and ordinary objects that tell the story of everyday life in Pompeii are as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes.
Many moons ago my wife and I went on a pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome, also visiting the cities of Sorrento and Pompeii. In the photo, notice Mount Vesuvius “faintly lurking” in the background. Today, it’s the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major eruption was in 1631. Another eruption is expected in the near future, which could be devastating for the 700,000 people who live in the “death zones” around Vesuvius.
To quote “The Little Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “One never knows about volcanoes.”
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