Pompeii was an ancient city that was covered by ash and rock from the explosion of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. This event was the full stop at the end of Pompeii’s story. What stood out the most as you wander the streets of Pompeii is that city was never ransacked or abandoned. It was paused in time by a natural disaster. When the city was excavated from under 7ft of debris they found the city as it had been in 79AD.
Pompeii with Mt Vesuvius looming in the back ground
During the excavations they found the space where people’s bodies had been buried during the explosion and filled them with plaster. This meant that when they excavated them they had a plaster casts of people how they were when they were buried in 79AD. This was really special to see as you could understand more of the human impact that a natural disaster has. The other ruins we have seen have not had this personal element. In the picture below on the left you can see that the person is holding a scarf over their face, this would have been to protect them from breathing in the burning ash.
These are examples of their pedestrian crossings. They were raised so you wouldn’t get your feet dirty on flooded roads. The chariot wheels would run through the gaps in the blocks.
These are ancient cats eyes (white stones) which reflected the moon and streetlights so you could see the road.
This was a road side food outlet.
At each ancient city we visit we are reminded time and time again that the way we live today is not that different to how people used to live. In particular at Pompeii we were reminded that the vices in society haven’t changed. The particle vice that highlighted this to us was sex. This is were I could put a disclaimer around adult content but that would probably just make you want to keep reading so here goes… Pompeii was a coastal town with a large port which catered to a large number of sailors on shore leave. This meant that there were places for them to be fed, watered and numerous brothels. To ensure that sailors didn’t get lost on their way to the brothels they placed phallic symbols (penises) on the road with tip pointing in the direction they needed to head.
They knew they had reached the brothel as there was another phallic symbol on the wall. We walked into one of these old brothels which had rooms with stone beds but what we couldn’t believe was the reception area. Due to the many different languages that would have been spoken they needed to ensure that people got what they wanted so they had a MacDonald’s style menu board with pictorial descriptions of what is on offer.
After we had finished seeing Pompeii we headed on to see Herculaneum which was another Roman town buried under mud from the Vesuvius explosion. You can see the difference in the height of the ground level for the modern city versus the ancient city
Because it was covered by mud, rather than ash like Pompeii, the Herculaneum ruins are actually in better condition and some of the old wooden supports for the houses are still original, amazing!
We wandered around the site enjoying the preserved houses, mosaics and streets before heading back to Rome. We didn’t have any guide so we were pretty stoked to discover an old bakery on our own. We found the old mill for the flour and then the oven next door which is were they would have baked their bread and other goodies.
Until next time…
Oh The Places You'll Go 