Why pompeii preserved

The buildings, art, artifacts, and bodies forever frozen offer a unique window on the ancient world. Since its rediscovery in the midth century, the site has hosted a tireless succession of treasure hunters and archaeologists. For early archaeologists, the disaster of the city's final days was the primary draw, unearthing buildings and streets as they stood at the time of the eruption.

Ellis's team is particularly interested in a corner of the city near the Porta Stabia gate that is a bit off the beaten archaeological path. When they first cleared it of debris in the s, they left this block for ruin because it had no large villas and it was covered over with a terrible jungle of vegetation," he says.

Much research has centered on public buildings and breathtaking villas that portray the artistic and opulent lifestyle enjoyed by the city's wealthy elite. But while his quest is knowledge of the living Pompeii, Stanford University's Gary Devore , the project's co-director, notes that the eruption still resonates because of the intimate connection it created between past and present. Even after hundreds of years of work, about a third of the city still lies buried. Yet there is no rush to unearth these hidden Pompeii neighborhoods.

Volcanic ash long protected Pompeii, but much of it has now been exposed to the elements for many years. The combined wear of weather, pollution, and tourists has created a real danger of losing much of what was luckily found preserved.

Over his 13 seasons at Pompeii, Devore has witnessed great improvements in conservation and preservation of the priceless site. So it's incredibly important that we record in great detail, with the ability to recreate what we've taken away afterward. That's how we're part of the conservation of Pompeii. A person standing in the doorway of the Monastery at Petra, Jordan, shows the enormity of the ancient building's entrance. Carved into the sandstone hill by the Nabataeans in the second century A.

All rights reserved. Preserving Pompeii's Past for the Future Even after hundreds of years of work, about a third of the city still lies buried. Today's great challenge is preservation of what has been uncovered.

The bodies of Pompeii are even more lifelike than they appear. Surviving until the age of 10 in Pompeii would have been a feat as children often died from infectious diseases and lack of proper treatment. Diseases leave their mark in the enamel of teeth, so archeologists have insight into some of the most common causes of death among the children of Pompeii. Syphilis ranks among the top. There are tell-tale signs on the bones of a pair of young male twins that point to congenital syphilis.

Although many scientists previously believed that Columbus and his sailors brought syphilis back to Europe after sailing to America, this proves the disease existed in Europe more than 1, years before then. The estimates as to how many people were killed in Pompeii vary greatly, and the number has been a topic of debate among historians for decades. Regardless of how many people actually perished, it seems that we were wrong in our belief that most of the victims died of suffocation from the ash in the air.

New studies suggest that most died instantly from the extreme heat. According to Italian scientists, residents of Pompeii may have been exposed to temperatures well over 1, degrees. Researchers discovered some of the Pompeii bodies in the fetal position.

P erched high in the gods of the great theatre, you get a good view of the waves of tourists. They enter from left and right, then flow on towards the forum, or the baths, or the lupanar the brothel where the explicit, 2,year-old wall decorations are such a draw that visitors get pushed in one entrance and out the other with barely enough time to focus the camera lens.

Watching this apparently endless performance, and overhearing excitable talk of Elton John and David Gilmour having played gigs in the giant amphitheatre just a few nights before, it seems reasonable to conclude that the vast ruin of ancient Roman Pompeii must, of all the lost cities in the world, represent the one most found.

How it was lost is legendary. The violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius over two days in the year AD79 has inspired numerous novels, paintings, poems and dramas on stage and screen , not least an especially firey episode of Doctor Who.

His uncle, the Roman naval commander and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder , did not live to tell the tale. The cloud of pumice and ash blasted some 20 miles into the sky, then began to collapse, pouring down on surrounding fields and towns.

As roofs buckled and broke beneath the mounting debris, most people made a run for it. Some strapped pillows to their heads as protection from the showers of rock; many left it too late. Cascades of scorching ash and toxic gases known as pyroclastic surges, which probably reached C, brought instant death to the residents of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum, along with numerous smaller settlements in between.

Meanwhile, Pliny the Elder, driven by his curiosity as a naturalist and his duty as an admiral, sailed south to the stricken town of Stabiae.