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Pompeii & Herculaneum: Li
They are going from strength to strength at the
wonderful British Museum. The run of exciting
exhibitions held inside the atmospheric round
Reading Room of the old British Library (which
moved to its new purpose built site in Euston) that
began with The Terracotta Army in 2007 comes to
an end in 2013 with
Pompeii & Herculaneum: Life
& Death in The Roman Empire
which opens on
28 March and runs right through until 29 September
2013. It won’t be the end of exhibitions at the Museum
but from 2014 the new purpose built exhibition hall
will be up and ready for
The Viking World
which,
when it opens in March 2014 will be the first of five
major exhibitions sponsored by BP.
A Disaster That No One Saw Coming
Pompeii, less than 5 miles from Mount Vesuvius, was
one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire.
The nearby Bay of Naples and the River Sarnus
provided a good transport system for exporting goods
to other parts of the Empire and the volcanic soil was
very fertile. There were many rich villas in the area.
In February AD 62 a serious earthquake hit the Bay
of Naples causing deaths and damaging nearly every
building in Pompeii and the neighbouring city of
Herculaneum. The earthquake was caused by steam
and gas building up inside the volcano. But there had
been no eruption for 1500 years and there wasn’t even
a word for volcano in the local tongue so the people
living in this area had no idea of the danger they were
in. Indeed the hugely superstitious Romans, believing
they must have upset their gods, rather than move to
safer areas simply increased their prayers and
sacrifices.
Some people left the area but the vast majority decided
to stay. The Roman government gave financial help
and within fifteen years the rebuilding of Pompeii and
Herculaneum was almost complete. In the summer of
AD 79 the people living close to Vesuvius felt several
earth tremors, the most serious on the morning of 24
August. A few hours later the people heard a
tremendous explosion. The steam and gases that had
been building up for hundreds of years had finally
blown out a gigantic hole at the top of Vesuvius.
The violence of the eruption blasted rock and ash into
the air completely blocking the rays of the sun. Within
minutes the whole area was in darkness, the only light
coming from the flames shooting from the top of the
volcano.
The steam that emerged from Vesuvius was extremely
hot (an estimated 2000° Fahrenheit). Condensing as it
made contact with the atmosphere, the steam turned
into heavy rain. This combination of volcanic ash,
earth and rain created an avalanche of hot mud.
As it flowed down the mountain towards the sea, it
destroyed all the houses and villas in its path. At the
bottom, just a couple of miles away, the mud reached
Herculaneum. As the mud rose fairly slowly, most
people were able to get away before the whole town
was completely submerged.
Pompeii, which was on the other side of Vesuvius, did
not suffer from mud like Herculaneum. Instead it was
showered with rock fragments formed by lava spray