On August 24, AD79, Mount Vesuvius literally blew its top, spewing tons of molten ash, pumice and sulfuric gas miles into the atmosphere. A firestorm of poisonous vapors and molten debris engulfed the surrounding area suffocating the inhabitants of the neighboring Roman resort cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. Tons of falling debris filled the streets until nothing remained to be seen of the once thriving communities. The cities remained buried and undiscovered for almost 1700 years until excavation began in 1748. These excavations continue today and provide insight into life during the Roman Empire. At the time of its destruction, Pompeii is estimated to have had a population of 20,000. The AD 79, Mount Vesuvius eruption is noted as one of the most catastrophic and infamous eruptions in European history. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet. Who describe his experience during the eruption while he was staying in the home of his Uncle, Pliny the Elder. The elder Pliny was an official in the Roman Court, in charge of the fleet in the area of the Bay of Naples and a naturalist. Pliny the Youngers letters were discovered in the 16th century.Mount Vesuvius spewed a deadly cloud of volcanic gas, stones, ash and fumes to a height of 33 kilometres (21 mi), ejecting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima bombing. The towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits. An estimated 16,000 people died in the eruption. By 2003 around 1,044 casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits had been recovered in and around Pompeii, with the scattered bones of another 100. The remains of about 332 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults discovered in 1980). eyewitnesstohistory/pompeii.htm en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 13:41:39 +0000
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