I Never Quite Understood How Much Pompeii Sucked Until I Watched This

"Michael Ballaban" (ballaban)
08/13/2014 at 23:05 • Filed to: Volcanoes, OTBA, Pompeii, History

This might come across as silly, but before tonight I never really understood just how bad the destruction of the city of Pompeii was in AD 79. I mean, I've been to its ruins in Italy, and I understood in an abstract term the details. But never had I seen the volcanic apocalypse laid out quite like this.

(Also, you'll forgive me if I post this here on Oppo, but it's something I wanted to share with people and it's not really standard Jalop-faire. So who better than all you guys? What can I say, the bloggin's in the blood.

It's not like I'm completely ignorant when it comes to volcanoes. From building the vinegar-and-baking-soda models in the early years of elementary school, to ravenously devouring any encyclopedia, to studying geology and physical geography in both high school and college, I'd learned quite a bit about them. I could tell you about magma chambers, pyroclastic flows, ash plumes, wild volcanic lightning, I could tell you about the difference between shield volcanoes and cone volcanoes.

Okay, so I didn't earn an A+ in all those classes I'd took, so I could be off on some things. I'd known that the biggest one ever recorded, at Krakatoa, killed a lot of people, but I couldn't rattle off the top of my head just how many. I knew that it was noxious poisonous gasses that killed a lot of the people, in addition to the searing heat and ash, but I couldn't tell you which was more deadly.

I knew about Pompeii, too, from a lot of the same reading and a few history classes. I knew it was destroyed in AD 79, and I knew that it was the only Roman city destroyed, but so was another town, called Herculaneum. I knew that the aforementioned pyroclastic flows killed a lot of people, but I didn't know how many. I knew that when people died, choked and smothered by the ashes, their bodies often turned to dust in the ensuing years, leaving empty cavities in the positions they'd occupied.

I'd been there, too, when I was 13, and I saw the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the Pompeiians left behind.

But all of those ideas remained mostly abstract concepts, as I'd never actually seen what the complete ruin of a city could look like in just one rotation of the Earth.

So this short video from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! really puts the wrath of Mount Vesuvius in perspective. It shows just how quickly a beautiful summer's day turned into a scene from Dante's Inferno, and with just how much speed the volcano laid waste to the lives of over 15,000 people.

As the video concludes:

Pompeii had been completely buried. Within a few years, no one could remember where the city had once stood.

DISCUSSION (34)

Patrick George > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:10

That's a bad day right there.

Michael Ballaban > Patrick George
08/13/2014 at 23:11

Oh hey PG, just hangin' out on Oppo?

Jay Lauer > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:12

The dogs barking is breaking my goddamn heart.

That's cold.

Michael Ballaban > Jay Lauer
08/13/2014 at 23:13

No, it was hot!

Sorry, I really couldn't help myself.

EL_ULY > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:20

dayum!

Agrajag > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:23

That was sufficiently terrifying.

This disaster always intrigued me. On one hand, it was a horrible catastrophe that killed thousands of people. On the other, it preserved a piece of this amazing culture for future generations. Ancient Rome will never cease to amaze me in any aspect.

Crocket Bernet > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:28

What a shitty time for a thunderstorm to light your city on fire, as if you don't have enough to deal with.

StoneCold > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:29

I do wonder how the news would spread of its destruction.

There would not have been too many survivors, so it would have taken travelers to show and think "Where did Pompeii go?" Yeah, there would have been darkening and maybe some aftershocks hitting the nearby places, but I wonder how long it took for Rome to officially take Pompeii off the map.

Really puts how amazing instant communication is in perspective.

mXxxxXm24 /O/ /O/ > Michael Ballaban
08/13/2014 at 23:34

Wow. That video made very real, a history that had become what you aptly referred to as abstract.

Simplify, then add beer > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 00:38

Fun Fact: I once went to visit Pompeii, on the first day of a very bad case of food poisoning. I had to do that weird walk-run that you do when you really need to go through the whole goddamn city.

Needless to say, there's been more than one eruption there...

BoulderZ > StoneCold
08/14/2014 at 00:39

For geologists, that's one of the amazing things about it. It was one of the earliest and best "live blogged" volcanic eruptions. Pliny the Younger was lucky enough to be 1) literate and 2) well connected and fortunate in timing to be at a close enough distance to see and yet get out in time before it killed him.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pompeii.htm

The pyroclastic flow killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder (Navy guy), in whose home Younger was staying. Nuee' Ardente' (pyroclastic flows) are serious business. But, Younger survived, wrote down what he saw while it was happening, and the records of it spread through the empire on their wonderful network of roads and messengers. Same thing as the internet, just hay-powered, and a little slower. Rome knew what happened within a few days.

Thing is, those hazards are all still very, very active. Vesuvius and the others in the chain are on a clock, and Rainier and its siblings are a xerox of that system, from a hazards point of view.

Simplify, then add beer > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 00:42

Another fun fact: the waves caused by the Krakatoa eruption circled the world several times , and took 5 days to settle down. For the next 3 years people on the other side of the planet used to see fire-red sunsets, and would call the fire brigade thinking there was a blaze.

Tohru > Patrick George
08/14/2014 at 01:13

Well, you are the current resident expert on bad days. At least, until someone connects that strange smell from Hardibro's basement with all those missing hookers...

joystuck > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 05:29

As much as I like your post, I don't buy it, completely.

Obviously I wasn't there, (if I had been there, I'm hoping I wasn't there...whatever) but the 'fossil' people and dogs and preserved buildings/foundations point to a fast moving (choking, very fine) ash cloud rushing across the area, violently, (like what happened with Mount St Helens).

This vid seems to suggest there was time for the Vesuvians pack their suitcases and round up the bed slaves.

Rwlong > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 07:24

My Mother is from Naples, and I spent most summers of my youth there. Every year we would, at some time, make the pilgrimage to either Pompeii, Herculaneum or Vesuvius, usually the Volcano. It was closest. At the time, mid-seventies, they had built up to the the edge of the Volcano. On my last visit, about ten years ago, I was shocked that they had built more then half way up the mountain. When it blows again, and it will, Pompeii will look like nothing.

MEESTALUBBA > joystuck
08/14/2014 at 09:46

apparently, according to the wiki, heat killed most of the people instantly and without warning. sudden exposure to temperatures as high as 482 deg F.

joystuck > MEESTALUBBA
08/14/2014 at 10:04

yeah, its the speed of the event in the video that doesn't do it for me. Maybe the video is further away from the volcano... anyway.. its all very slow...

Tom McParland > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 10:31

Hey guys...Oppo...good times.

titsinmymitts > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 10:51

What's frightening is when the screams and the barking stops. That's when you know that everyone is dead.

philipilihp > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 10:53

Insane how quickly that happened. In 24 hrs the city was just buried. You always read that the people had no time to get out, and this animation illustrates that pretty well.

Michael Ballaban > joystuck
08/14/2014 at 11:26

There was time to evacuate before the pyroclastic flows began, as documented by Pliny the Younger, who noted that his uncle, Pliny the Elder, led evacuation efforts. There were still people remaining hours later, however, and the flows killed them virtually instantly.

RMudkips > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 13:06

Speaking of Pompeii, has anyone seen that spooky Pink Floyd concert there?

Strange Noises Alou > Crocket Bernet
08/14/2014 at 14:12

the two are not unrelated. the volcanic activity heated up the air, causing thunder clouds to brew up as on any good hot summer day... but more powerful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrocumul…

General Disarray > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 14:13

wow. that was awesome.

Crocket Bernet > Strange Noises Alou
08/14/2014 at 14:24

I know, it was a joke. Some people just don't get my brand of humor through text.

kayldera > StoneCold
08/14/2014 at 14:52

To know than something has happened? Probably not more than couple of days, someone must have seen the mountain spit fire and brimstone and sent a message to Rome via horse courier.

kayldera > joystuck
08/14/2014 at 14:58

Matter of scale. Those things are tens of feet high, so even though to are moving at 60+ mph, they will look slow because they are so big.

Prophet of hoon > Michael Ballaban
08/14/2014 at 18:30

Not terribly accurate. When Mt. Vesuvius started shaking, people did leave. However, because the mountain had been shaking for quite awhile before it actually erupted - people started thinking it wasn't anything to worry about. Add to the false sense of security that the wind direct, generally, blew whatever went up away from the city. When the mountain did blow its top, the problem was this - the ash was 400 degrees - so people were trapped in their homes and the prevailing wind had switched directions. The ones who stayed were overcome by the gases eventually. Lots tried to run away - but could not - and those are the figures you see on the ground outside. Their hope was to make it to the harbor... It literally was hell on earth. The worst part would have been trying to go outside, but being unable to due to the heat, then slowly being roasted alive as the temperature increased until it burned your lungs and you suffocated. Many of the buildings did survive until long after the last person died because they were brick... and they became crematoriums.

Keep in mind this wasn't a Mt. St. Helens eruption that flattened everything in its path, it was more like a smoke stack spewing lava - trapping people inside because the wind blew the hot gases, rocks, and dust over the city.

Mt. Vesuvius is still active, and one of those "mega disasters" programs on History channel lays out what I just said in pretty graphic detail.

Rwlong > Agrajag
08/14/2014 at 23:05

It is very chilling to see the plaster casts of the body cavities. They fascinated me as a boy and are on display; or at least were when I visited. It is hard to envision the city as if it were alive. Ancient Rome was all around and yet for most Italians, just the everyday scenery! Still, quite incredible.

Rwlong > Rwlong
08/14/2014 at 23:18

I sent my Mother the video, as she experienced the last eruption during the war. She was quite taken by the video, so thank you Michael. They abandoned their house in a small town on the southern side of Vesuvius, and then moved to Napoli. Luckily they were some of the few that could afford to do so. Many lost their homes to the eruption (the weight of the ash on the roofs) after surviving Mussolini, the Nazis and the Allied Invasion.

joystuck > Michael Ballaban
08/15/2014 at 04:21

Thanks - to you and one of the earliest witness statements. The Mt St Helens wiki page tells a similar tale, luckily "Prior to the eruption, USGS scientists convinced local authorities to close Mount St. Helens to the general public and to maintain the closure in spite of local pressure to re-open it; their work saved thousands of lives."

Strange Noises Alou > Crocket Bernet
08/15/2014 at 11:44

complete humor fail.

if Kinja and the poop-spammers let me, I would post for myself the GIF of the head with the word JOKE flying in a neat arc high above it.

pdxwhy > kayldera
08/15/2014 at 13:45

There were survivors, though! Ships did leave the coast and travelled down the coast, where Roman legions were stationed, where soldiers were deployed to see what happened AND to tell the Senate. Romans who had homes in Naples (Neapolis) would have also been informed in about a day.

chromaticrabbit > Michael Ballaban
08/16/2014 at 11:41

I think I realized at an early point how bad it was when, as I kid, I saw somewhere, maybe in an issue of the National Geographic Society magazine, concrete statues of people in fetal positions, curled up, etc. The article had explained that archeologists had found cavities in the hardpack ash, and, filling them with cement prior to excavating the ash, these forms emerged of people who were essentially buried and/or burned alive by the ash. Yikes.