Pretty cool. It prompted me to wonder how long it took for news of the event to disseminate throughout the empire and how it was received. The attached articles don't really go into it. But the Wikipedia article includes this curious point, which I had never encountered before:
The eruption was documented by contemporary historians and is generally accepted as having started on 24 August 79, relying on one version of the text of Pliny's letter. However the archeological excavations of Pompeii suggest that the city was buried about three months later. This is supported by another version of the letter, which gives the date of the eruption as November 23.
Which makes me want to imagine historians 2000 years from now debating whether 9/11 really occurred on 9/11 or closer to 12/11.
Which almost makes me want to go ask on /r/AskHistorians whether there is any record of Pompeii Truthers. I'd be kinda shocked if there wasn't.
Mary Beard talks about this in her book "Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town". She points out that not only are there multiple versions of Pliny's letter with different dates, but also:
1) Many of the victims were wearing heavy woolen clothes. Hardly what you would expect on a day in late August in Italy.
2) Shops and restaurants have seasonal foods that are typical of late fall and early winter, not late summer.
3) The latest election ads throughout the town were for an election that took place well after late August
4) A coin was found in such a way that it could not possibly have been dropped by later looters. Currently believed that the earliest the coin could have been minted is late September of 79 (she doesn't give much detail about this).
So yes there is quite a bit of debate about when this happened.
I wonder if that is factoring in the date jump in the Julian to Gregorian calendars? That would only be 11-12 days difference, I suppose, but I'm not sure if there are any other calendar restructurings involved before then.
The last big calendar restructuring before the eruption was done by Julius Caesar when he created the Julian Calendar. It brought the calendar back in synch with the seasons.
EDIT: Forgot to say when this reform happened. 46 BCE, to take effect in 45 BCE.
Which makes me want to imagine historians 2000 years from now debating whether 9/11 really occurred on 9/11 or closer to 12/11.
What might be a useful reason for that, except academic exercise? Even being able to tell the exact year some 2000 years later would still be a very precise, all things considered.
For all practical purposes I can imagine, knowing the time of eruption rounded to "in the fall of year NNNN" would be more than enough. Maybe there is a genuine need for more precise dating but the need would have to be partially theoretical due to the fact that it's simply pretty damn difficult to tell. Based on the quoted part, we basically have some old stories and notes which themselves suggest something but still leave many doors open and that's all.
Pliny the Elder died there, trying to run ships across the sea to save people [0] from the eruption. He was asthmatic and succumbed to smoke inhalation.
But I think that informs the situation a little. The eruption was going on long enough that Plinius could show up, say "pack up your household, let's go", think about how things were going, disseminate orders to wear pillows on everyone's heads to protect from falling rocks, and even take a bath [1].
[0] Well, maybe just his friends, but he was still a historian who mounted a rescue mission.
[1] which was likely because of an asthma attack and thinking the steam would help, but there is some thought it was to also demonstrate coolness under pressure and help prevent a panic in his charges.
By my understanding of the event, a wall of mud and ash buried the city 10+ feet deep almost instantly. Fossil were found with food in their mouths. What timeline was this "simulation" built on?
The ancient Pompeii is much closer to Vesuvius than it is easy to gather from photos...
The eruption took time, when the pyroclastic flow finally came down and hit the city, the city got buried quite quickly.
However, before the pyroclastic flow came down, many people had plenty of time to escape, and many others died because of respiratory problems, or hit by debris.
Key thing to bear in mind is that, back then, very few people would have had an idea of what was happening and how dangerous it was, even less so about the fact that there was an actual need to escape and what was a safe distance...
(Consider this: there is a lot of stuff falling from the sky and low visibility because of the dust in the air, would you run outside or seek cover insider?)
I had the same reaction as you, so I googled it. According to Wikipedia[1] the eruption did indeed take two days, with shocks starting in the morning and ash starting to fall in earnest at 1 p.m., with "pyrocastic flows" beginning in the middle of the night. People were able to escape and be rescued during the afternoon.
Sigh. Was it really necessary to preface it with: "This is not a flippant comment"?
How else to explain such sudden deaths, even considering there was enough warning of impending catastrophe, and time to escape? Why else stick it out until that final blast of pyroclastic fury?
I don't know the distances involved here, but I'd imagine there to be enough of one to delay the sound from the volcano to the point of observation. I wasn't sure that this animation took into account the speed of sound. It was pretty cool regardless!
The eruption was documented by contemporary historians and is generally accepted as having started on 24 August 79, relying on one version of the text of Pliny's letter. However the archeological excavations of Pompeii suggest that the city was buried about three months later. This is supported by another version of the letter, which gives the date of the eruption as November 23.
Which makes me want to imagine historians 2000 years from now debating whether 9/11 really occurred on 9/11 or closer to 12/11.
Which almost makes me want to go ask on /r/AskHistorians whether there is any record of Pompeii Truthers. I'd be kinda shocked if there wasn't.