THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city, buried by a volcanic eruption. 2000 years later, archaeologists uncovered the city.  The people in ancient Pompeii did not have a chance to escape. The city had been quickly buried by volcanic ash.

The volcanic destruction of Pompeii was also a kind of natural mummification of these Roman cities for posterity to see.

Can you imagine the horror of being swept by monstrously flowing lava and covered with white ash? Well this happened to immediately to the people in the Roman twin cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD.
August 24, 79 AD like any other day for the citizens of Pompeii were performing their daily activities. Children laughed and played and men and women went about their daily business.

It was a hot and sunny day, historians say. While the people enjoyed the sunshine, the Vesuvius volcano, located barely a mile from the centre of the city of Pompeii, was simmering in its core. On the outside, it looked deceptively calm and beautiful. The slopes were covered with vineyards and no one would have suspected what was going to happen.

Deep inside the volcano, white-hot streams were heating up and rising. The Vesuvius was pushing up the hot streams of lava. Soon the force of the lava pushed it outside and there happened one of the worst volcanic eruptions in the history of mankind. The lava rushed down the slopes of the Vesuvius and swept the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, catching everyone off guard.

In fact, everything was so sudden that there was no time to escape from its fury and run to safety. Besides, no place was safe from the monstrous downpour of the lava.

While some people fell dead on the spot, several others died at exit points, trying to escape from the killer lava. As if this was not enough, the torrent of the lava was followed by the flowing of white ash from the volcano, which systematically covered the lava like a topping of snow. Entire families, homes, streets, buildings, animals, verily the entire city was buried underneath the layers of hot ash and lava.

As luck would have it, it rained torrentially soon after and the rain water reacted with the white ash to form a layer of cement on top. And this buried potential survivors underneath forever.  

A dog...one of the many victims of Pompeii

When archaeologists dug out the city, two thousand years later, they found petrified bread still in the ovens that had been baking that day. Archaeologists learned a great deal from the ruins of this ancient city because it had been so well preserved.