By: Kenny Marra and Zach Bush Pompeii By: Kenny Marra and Zach Bush

Pompeii’s Natural Disaster Pompeii was a large town in southern Italy, people lived peacefully until one day Mount Vesuvius (at the time they thought it was simply a large hill.) blew its top. This hill was actually a very destructive volcano. It’s true, on August 24th B.C. 79 Mount Vesuvius blew up and within a few hours Pompeii was covered in 6-20 feet of pumice. (Remember that rock in science class that could float, well that’s pumice!)

So What Exactly Happened 6:30 am. The second surge occurs, which wipes outs even more! This surge hits the wall of Pompeii but doesn’t do much damage. 7:00 am. This surge affects much of Pompeii wiping out a lot of the town. 8:00 am. The largest surge occurs, no one makes it out alive, and Pompeii is covered in many feet of pumice. 1:00 pm. August 24th white ash blew over Pompeii, it was a giant snowstorm but with ash not snow, a lot of cargo got stopped. 8:00 pm. The ash is no longer white now it shifts to more of a greyish color. 1:00 am. The first surge happens, an avalanche of fire, not to mention the extremely hot cloud moving at 180 miles per hour. The two combined killed all organisms, this surge reached Herculaneum a smaller town.

Vesuvius’s Eruption As you know earth is made up of giant rocks or plates, when these plates move apart or hit each other magma is pushed to the surface from pressure. The magma in Vesuvius was so hot and steam filled it turned to pumice. As a matter of fact no magma completely made the surface or became lava. This is because of the heat and all the steam. Just because there was no lava doesn’t mean it can’t be deadly. This pumice and extremely hot gas turned out to wipe out a whole city.

The Lost Town Of Herculaneum The ash of the volcano became rich soil and then settler's came to this land and made settlements. They built knew cities and towns, one of which lied literally on top of an old destroyed town. Then on 1709 a peasant found huge stone slabs, next many archeologists came and proved this was not Pompeii but Herculaneum. Unfortunately nobles already stole all of its loot and jewels so there was with fortune to be found. Archeologist found frigidarium’s, (an extremely cold room) tempidarium’s, (warm rooms) and caldarium’s (really hot room’s.)

The Findings of Pompeii The archeologist decide to look somewhere else and found Pompeii. It took a long time to dig but once it was done this ancient city was amazing. People are able to see what it was like in ancient Rome. There were many buildings and temples to worship there gods such as the temple of Jupiter. The people in Pompeii took daily baths but not at home. Yes people in Pompeii took public baths in cold or hot baths. Remember those three rooms in the slide before, Frigidarium, tempidarium, and the caldarium where baths also, not just rooms. Pompeian's drank out of fountains.

Pompeian's Daily Entertainment In Pompeii there are amphitheaters they were built for entertainment. It was made for killing. These giant structures could hold about 20,000 people. The entertainment was men fighting other men, men fighting animals, and animals fighting animals. These men were called gladiator’s, they were usually slaves or criminals. Pompeii had many shops where people could sell foods, cloths and bronze. Bronze scales were made to measure the weight of the items to make sure it was an equal trade. Just like today the people of Pompeii had many signs, such as beware of dog signs to keep unwanted visitors out..

Daily Life At the homes of the wealthy there were no chairs at the dining table but instead big, great and beautiful couches. In the summer the wealthy Pompeian's had many beautiful fountains. One of which and the most beautiful got copied exactly! That copy is at L.A. and it’s called the Great Fountain. In the now eat on couches outside, these are great stone couches. Pompeian’s had lived almost the same as us. When they weren’t being entertained they just stayed at home, eating, sleeping, working, and drinking. In their yards they had beautiful fountains, gardens, and sculptures. Pompeian's ate octopus, lobster, rabbits and a lot of other foods.

Herculaneum Pompeii wasn’t the only town that got destroyed, there was also Herculaneum, a smaller town. This town was completely buried under a city. At Herculaneum there were many plays and shows. As like today they had actors also. The remains of people had big gorgeous rings and bracelets on them.

Plaster Master The image you see below is a person of Pompeii. This person died in the eruption, why is he/she in stone? Well ,archeologists preserved this body in plaster because of age the bones are fragile and archeologists don’t want them to break, so they preserved them in plaster.

Are Volcanos all that bad? Sure I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking yes aren’t you. Well think about it what good things come out of volcano’s. Lava, rocks, ash, I know, how could that be any good for our use? Well many islands have been made out of underwater volcanos. Lava cools and turns into rock, slowly these rocks rise and surface. Then many beautiful islands like Hawaii have been made. So you can thank these volcano’s for making our world a better place.

Other Facts Now People can go up and see Vesuvius, It takes about half an hour for tourists to climb and it is now a tourist hot spot. Archeologists use tooth brushes to clean the remains of the skeletons (yes that means they clean their teeth with tooth brushes. The eruption was so strong that there was also earthquakes and tidal waves. There is now more towns and cities around the volcano, That’s probably not a good idea knowing it has once erupted and killed everyone around it.

Resource: KIDS DISCOVER Pompeii August/September 1995 Volume 5, Issue 7

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