Pompeii

Pompeii was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt Vesuvius. 

That was the extent of my knowledge of this area. Now, I almost wish I didn't know as much.

This wasn't a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary. This was a thriving metropolis with not just homes and shops, but large structures, such as the ampitheater and the forum.

The ruins were so extensive that we spent over 5 hours exploring them and only saw approximately 50% of them.

As we walked perfectly laid out streets, marveling at the beautiful frescos, the mosaic tile floors, the stonework, the freize, the ingenious drainage, even the store signage (like "Vesuvino", a wine merchant's and earliest pun master), we began to get a feel for daily life in Pompeii. And we wondered why they would build such a bustling city next to a volcano. The simple answer is that they did not know. 

There had been some tremors in the few years preceding the eruption, then an earthquake that did a large amount of damage. This caused many of the 11,000 inhabitants to move elsewhere, but many more stayed. Tremors, even earthquakes were not a rare occurrence. Think California before Northridge.

See that beautiful mountain in the background? That's Mt Vesuvius. That's how it looks today and very likely what it looked like when this area was first settled.

Then, on August 24, 79 (AD), ironically one day after the Vulcanalia festival to the Roman god of fire (including that of volcanoes), Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the city under some 20 feet of volcanic ash and pumice. 

Although historians and eye witnesses from the Roman fleet docked nearby documented the event, the site was not rediscovered until 1599.

Because of the suddenness of the event and the physical properties of the ash, Pompeii was amazingly preserved. And not just buildings were preserved in ash. 

Things like seeds, fruit, even this loaf of bread.

I actually found the bread to be more poignant than anything else because it really gave a sense of the suddenness of the catastrophe. People were basically going about their every day chores, when a 482°F pyroclastic cloud moving at roughly 400mph swooped down from the vented Vesuvius and killed people where they stood. Even those sheltered indoors died instantly because of the extreme heat. Then ash and pumice rained on the city for 6 hours.

When archeologists began excavating, they would come across empty pockets in the ash. These were painstakingly filled with plaster and yielded these:

Pompeii was an amazingly beautiful and unexpectedly painful place to visit. A place to reflect on how fleeting life truly is and examine whether we are living it the way we should.

"Likewise, just as it occurred in the days of Lot: They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodʹom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be the same on that day when the Son of man is revealed." - Luke 17:28-30