Pompeii

Ian, Edward, Olivia, and Amal

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LINCOLN GEOGRAPHIC

Explorer

Table of Contents..........................................................................................................Introduction 3

....................................................................What was a normal day in Pompeii? 4

........................................................................................What was the City like? 6

..........................................................................................What is Mt. Vesuvius? 7

...................................................................What happened during the eruption? 8

......................................................................................What about the survival? 9

.....................................................................What happened at the excavation? 10

..........................................................................................................Conclusion 12

..............................................................................................Wordwise Glossary 13

...........................................................................................................References 14

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Introduction Could you imagine what it was like to in Pompeii on the day August, 24th 79 A.D.? There were very happy

living people until the famous eruption of Mt.Vesuvius which took Pompeii down to the ground. Read this article to

find out about terrible eruption.

Mt. Vesuvius exploding at a steaming rate!

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What was a normal day in Pompeii?

A normal day in Pompeii:

(4:27-5:42)

In the first part of the day people would go to

barber shops to talk and hang out. Also people had to

get water from the public fountains because most

people did not have private fountains in their house.

(5:42-6:58)

For breakfast they ate bread and cheese, maybe

with vegetables or anything else left over from the

night before. If you were poor you would eat on plates

made out of bread after you ate, you would eat the

plates too.

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(8:13 - 9:29)

In the forum people walked, talked and

discussed the problems of the town. For insistence you

might have heard a man say, “I want the troops to go

out of the city for battle, not stay inside and wait for

the Romans to attack and capture us all.” Another

man might have responded, “No we should not it will

kill every troop. We should keep every troop that we

have. The Romans have almost 7000 troops we are

outnumber.” “We need to do that, keep troops not give

them away to the Romans,” a third person might have

added. “Lets take a vote!” Sounds of “ok, ok, ok, sure”

could be heard in the forum. “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, it will

be the 3rd idea, we are going to keep the troops,”

declares the forum leader. Even though that is not

exactly what was said it is what it would have sounded

like at this time in the forum.

(12:00-1:15)

This was the moment to relax. Some rich noblemen

offered to the town an exhibition of gladiators so

people went to the amphitheater to see them fight.

Many of them were slaves fighting each other and

lions for their freedom. It was like the football matches

of today. We do not appreciate it now, but some

people did in 246 B.C.

(1:15-2:31)

This was the moment of thermal baths. People

went to large hot springs and had baths together.

Thankfully they were cheap so slaves could keep clean

and were not dirty all the time.

3:46-5:20

A short time before sunset, the romans had dinner

eating olives and eggs, and even meat, fish and and

cakes if they could afford it. There was no much to do

in the evenings, and the streets were not safe so people

went to bed early.

The people of Pompeii lived a pretty advanced life,

read on to learn more about what the city was like.

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What was the City like?Wobble wobble the cart fell into a ditch and up

again. It’s 79 A.D. and we are back in the center on

Pompeii. There was just farmers at the start but then

the city grew. The big city was not protected with walls

that is vary weird because it was a rich city. Later they

end up building 3 kilometer walls to protect the city

from attacks from the Romans. The walls width was 7

meters and there were 8 gates around the city. The

eldest, yet unknown building was made in 60 B.C. Did

you know that Pompeii is located in west cost of Italy?

It was 160 acres and it was whopping 500 meters

above sea level. Pompeii was also a very technological

city. When it rained they had gutters to carry the water

away, wow! Also there water source came from the

river saron, they had fountains were people could get

the water. Another example of being technical is the

streets were vary narrow 2.4 to 9.5 meters. Did you

know they had temple to resemble the great gods of

pompeii? They also had big grand bathhouses

(bathhouse are people used to bath in them but now

people do not bathe in bathhouse any more) they had

bakery's (the first shot in the Roman war hit a bakery)

and there was a amphitheater (a amphitheater is a

place were people performed plays). Pompeii was a

very complex city for its age and time.

A rumble for the wagon...

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What is Mt. Vesuvius?

What's Mt.vesuvius? What's the fact's? Tell me?

Okay, I will tell you. First this volcano is about 4,000

feet tall! That's 1,400 meters! That’s like 5 Empire

State building stacked on top of each other.

Mt.Vesuvius is complex. What does that mean? Well it

is a volcano which has more than one feature. This

means it has more than one vent, or place where lava

can flow out. It also has gone through many stages,

from a cone to the mountain it is today. But for double

the action there's more than one volcano. Since Italy is

right on tectonic plates it has tons of volcanos and

disasters there including: campi flegrei (the closest

volcano), Stromboli, Panarea, Vulcano, Etna, Campei

Flegrei del Mardi Sicilla (the farthest volcano ). So

what happened when this complex volcano erupted on

the city built below. This volcano’s ash blocked the

sun. Imagine when the moon blocks the sun it is like

that but with ash! Read on to learn more.

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What happened during the eruption?

Bang! A load of fiery, hot, gooey lava sprouted out

from the volcano, Mt.Vesuvius at 12. in the afternoon.

People were running and screaming while the ash

poured down the volcano at 70 miles per hour. As it

did, people and animals started getting sick and also

started choking. It took 24 hours to cover the beautiful

city of Pompeii. After that it was dark for 3 whole

days! At the end there was 3.5 meters of ash covering

the hard, bare ground. It would be 1,671 more years

until people see daylight there again!

Ash and pumice raining down on

everything

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What about the survival?The people of Pompeii made weird decisions. Only

one boy survived the eruption. That boy was Pliny. He

was only 18 when the eruption started. Imagine being

that young when a eruption happens and your the

only one who survived. Then this boy bought a boat

and sailed across the bay of Naples and got to sea.

That is a long trip. His jobs were a lawyer, a author

and a magistrate (the officer of the state). Pliny died

at the age of 51. That's old for that age at that time. At

first 90 % of the people of Pompeii got to safety and

some brought valuables. Shockingly all but Pliny went

back and died. I wonder why he didn’t go back?

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What happened at the excavation? Whoosh! As the wind blew, silence hung over

Pompeii, nobody moved, no one was even there. After

the spooky eruption in 79 A.D, a group of people who

set out to find the lost city of Pompeii were amazed!

Eyes scanned beautiful jewels sparkling in the sun,

ancient helmets that the gladiators wore were covered

in ash, even the old, dirty furniture. Wow! What

interesting treasures! So they slowly picked away the

ash, and dug, and dug until they reached priceless

treasures. The people sold the precious treasures for

money or, it's obvious, they kept them. Some scholars

were allowed to study the finds. Amazed by the

treasure, people really started to dig. They kept the ash

and pumice blocked by wooden panels. Pick, pick!

Shovel, shovel! In the 1900s, archeologists dug up the

ancient bodies of Pompeii. The first body to be found

had the most beautiful, sparkling jewels in it's skeleton

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hands. They put the gooey, sticky glue on the bones,

because they were broken into what seemed like a

thousand pieces. Then they put white plaster on the

bodies that were not disintegrated (because of all the

ash and pumice). People kept slowly digging at the ash.

As they dug, they found petrified eggs still on the grill!

It was figured that objects burned underneath the old,

ashy, ancient city where it was preserved for almost

more than 2,000 years! Plus they found the huge

skeletons of horses, dogs, mules, and, donkeys too.

Apparently, by the skeleton the archeologists can figure

out what probably the people and their animals had

looked like, like if it was a girl or boy, horse or mule. It

was pretty obvious that a scull was probably a dog or

human. Pompeii is now visited by millions and millions

of people. When will Mt. Vesuvius erupt again?

This dog was chained to a rope, and was struggling to get free. He choked and got sick, then, sadly, died

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Conclusion

The city and the people of Pompeii were facing a threat, but Mt. Vesuvius must be happy, dun dun dun! This

eruption taught people a lesson. Don't start your town near a Volcano. Do you think Mt. Vesuvius will erupt again?

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Wordwise Glossary Saron - the river that Pompeii got the water supplies

Forum- this is a place where people discussed problems

Magistrate- an officer of the town

Pumice- a rock that sprouts out of a volcano all rocky already

Ash- pulverized rock minerals and volcanic glass created during volcanic eruptions less than 2mm(0.079)in

diameter

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References Reference 1 - Mt. Vesuvius web from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount–Vesuvius

Reference 2- Lost Pompeii

Reference 3- Pompeii by Richard Platt

Reference 4- www.BBCHistory.com

Reference 5- Storyworks Magazine by Lauren Tarshis

Reference 6- Solving the Mysteries of Pompeii by Charlie Samuel

Reference 7- The lost city of Pompeii by Joan Malam

Reference 8- Buried Pompeii by Shelly Tanaka

Reference 9- www.history.com

Reference 10- www.google.com/images

Reference 11- Google Earth

Reference 12- www.Ask.yahoo

Reference 13- www.BBC.com

Reference 14- Pompeii lost and found by Mary Osborn Frescoes and Bonnie Christensen

Reference 15- Pompeii unearthing ancient worlds by Liz Sonneborn

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