POMPEII'S SECRETS: Scientists are discovering how people lived and died in the ancient Roman city that was buried for centuries under the ash of Mount Vesuvius.

• Author: Brown, Bryan
• Position: TIMES PAST

It was more terrifying than any disaster movie. In 79 A.D., the volcano Mount Vesuvius on Italy's western coast unexpectedly erupted. In a matter of hours, the nearby Roman city of Pompeii and its neighbor Herculaneum were buried under tons of ash and volcanic rock. An estimated 2,000 people were killed.

For 17 centuries, Pompeii stayed buried. Ever since archaeologists began uncovering the site in the 18th century, the world has been fascinated by the unique glimpse it has given us into the ancient past. Last year alone, more than 3 million people visited the site.

Pompeii may soon attract even more visitors. An ambitious $125 million effort sponsored by the European Union and the Italian government is unlocking more secrets of the city. The Great Pompeii Project is discovering fascinating new details about how Pompeiians lived--and how they died.

At the same time, the project's experts are working hard to save the ancient site, which has been threatened by centuries of both natural and human damage.

The ultimate goal, project director Massimo Osanna told National Geographic, is to reconstruct ancient Roman life "as though we have taken close-up photographs of a society 2,000 years ago."

A City Destroyed

Pompeii was once a thriving port city and seaside resort of about 12,000 people in the heart of the Roman Empire (see map, left). The city traded with every corner of the empire. Wealthy Romans had vacation homes there. Pompeii's streets were teeming with citizens, their slaves, and traders from all over.

So on the morning of August 24,79 A.D., it's likely few Pompeiians were paying attention to Mount Vesuvius, about 5 miles away. After all, the volcano hadn't erupted in more than 1,500 years.

Around midday, Vesuvius began smoking, then shooting flames into the sky. Soon it started to tremor and eject molten rock and ash in an enormous cloud that blotted out the sun.

The writer Pliny the Younger watched from Misenum, across the Bay of Naples. "Ashes were already falling, hotter and thicker," he later wrote, "followed by bits of pumice [volcanic rock] and blackened stones, charred and cracked by the flames."

By now, thousands of people were fleeing the city in panic. Those who sought shelter there didn't have a chance. The rain of pumice gathered deadly force, causing roofs to collapse on everyone inside.

Shortly after midnight, Vesuvius exploded again, triggering a surge of ash and hot gas of up to 100 miles per hour. Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely swallowed up.

Digging Up the Dead

As centuries passed, the locations of the old Roman towns covered by Vesuvius were lost. They became "fabled cities," says historian John Bodel of Brown University. When workers unexpectedly uncovered part of Herculaneum in 1709, experts knew they had found these almost mythical places.

But for more than a century, most attempts to excavate the sites were done haphazardly. In 1863, the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli finally began to unearth Pompeii in a systematic way.

His findings were revelations. Covered by up to 30 feet of volcanic debris, much of Pompeii had been amazingly preserved. "Vesuvius had frozen a city at a moment in time that could be examined like an insect in amber," says Bodel. Workers found intact loaves of bread and eggs still in their shells.

The uncovering of Pompeii was "a major event in world history," Bodel says. Its houses, shops, temples, and thousands of frescoes--paintings on plaster walls--formed the most detailed picture of an ancient Roman city ever found.

Then there were Pompeii's dead. The volcanic matter from Vesuvius had covered many people, then hardened around them. As the victims decom posed, they left behind their skeletons inside the ghostly outlines of their bodies. Fiorelli poured plaster into those figures as if they were an artist's molds, making casts that preserved the forms. One man curled up in a ball; another reached up to protect himself; a mother shielded her baby. These images of people at the moment of death bear haunting witness to Pompeii's fate.

New Technology

Scientists today are learning even more about the lives of Pompeii's citizens, thanks to new technology. For example, until recently, there was no way to examine the bones that remain inside the thick plaster casts.

Now, using CT scans (highly detailed 3-D X-rays), technicians can peer into the casts, drawing a clearer picture of those people and what happened to them.

So far, the scans have revealed that Pompeiians had strong teeth, suggesting good nutrition. Hundreds of bags of ancient human waste from the city's sewers also indicate a healthy diet rich in whole grains, fruits, nuts, and fish.

In addition, the scans reveal how those Pompeiians died: from head injuries caused by falling rock or collapsing buildings.

'Crisis' in Pompeii

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