Pompeii Exhibit

Replica of 32 remains that were found.

On August 24, 79 A.D., Mt. Vesuvius erupted covering the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, in volcanic ash and lava! These people honestly had no idea what hit them. Some people left because the eruption took a long time for it to become as bad it did when 12 miles of ash shot into the air! Many stayed after it started because I really don't think they knew what was going to happen and didn't really think they were in any real danger. They have found 1,100 victims some of them were made into casts and they have these people preserved in their death positions. 

Some of them are truly heartbreaking one is of a prisoner who was shackled so he couldn't escape. He is lying on the ground and you can tell he was trying to leave by the position he was in. Another cast was of a person sitting with their knees to their face and were covering their face with their hands so they wouldn't inhale the ash. The casts just make it seem real and you realize that these people were going about their daily lives one day and the next everything was taken from them. Makes me grateful for everything that I have.

"You could hear women moaning, children howling, and men shouting; they were crying out, some seeking parents, others children, and others wives, or recognizing them by the sound of their voices. Some were lamenting their own misfortune; others that of their families. A few in their fear of death were praying for death. Many were raising their hands to implore the gods, but more took the view that no gods now existed anywhere, and that this was an eternal and final darkness hanging over the world." - Pliny the Younger

The artifacts were cool to look at because they were things that these people would use on an everyday basis. They even have a plaster cast of a loaf of bread. They dug out tables, vases, medical instruments, coins, jewelry all sorts of interesting things that at one point were used by these people who had very little. They even had dice who knew something like that was so old and dice were actually illegal because you couldn't gamble, but of course people still did it anyway.


While looking at this stuff my friend asked if this happened to people in the United State or even around the world and we were buried for 16,000 years what they could tell about us just by the artifacts that had been left behind. An interesting thing to think about.  These people didn't even have a word for volcano and didn't even know what one was before it erupted and had no way to prepare themselves for something that literally buried them alive.


One of the most disturbing casts was of a family of four and one of the children that they cast you can see the child's face. It just seems like that would be a horrible way to die especially if you were the parent and didn't know what was happening around you truly heartbreaking.