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  • Whether it be from Mount Vesuvius or director Paul W.S.

  • Anderson, most of us associate the word Pompeii with disaster.

  • But while the deadly volcanic blast of 79 a.d.

  • was the most memorable aspect to this doomed civilization,

  • it was still just a single moment

  • in the history of this Italian city.

  • Today, we're looking at things you probably

  • didn't know about Pompeii.

  • So how much do we really know about the daily life

  • of Pompeii?

  • And just how devastating was the big blast that ended it all?

  • Let's see what we can dig up.

  • But before we start, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History

  • Channel.

  • Now let's go.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • At only a few hundred miles from the heavily populated Rome,

  • Pompeii served as a favored summer destination

  • for wealthy citizens looking for an extravagant vacation.

  • The city was far less dense than its Roman neighbor

  • and featured many tourist attractions,

  • such as a large amphitheater, as well as a commercial center

  • featuring bathhouses and shops.

  • Think of it as the peaceful island in the film

  • Jaws, except with a murderous volcano instead of a shark.

  • And also sex, lots and lots of sex.

  • It wouldn't be a true ancient Roman destination

  • without an absolute plethora of brothels,

  • something excavations have long confirmed.

  • The largest and most visited example

  • is known as the Lupanar.

  • Located in the center of the city,

  • archeologists were able to identify

  • a layout consisting of small cubicles each equipped

  • with a masonry bed.

  • Along with this pretty obvious sign of sex work,

  • the main building also featured an erotic menu on its walls

  • describing not only a list of explicit acts, but prices

  • for them as well.

  • In fact, the entire city was a mecca for fornication.

  • As many of the buildings outside of the brothel

  • were found to feature similar erotic art,

  • making this more like Amsterdam than a family destination.

  • And speaking of street art.

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  • If you think graffiti is a modern invention,

  • then you've clearly never seen the hooligan antics

  • of caveman civilizations.

  • We've been crudely marking our territory

  • since the dawn of man, Pompeii being no different.

  • Modern visitors of the scorch landmark

  • can still enjoy the wall humor of centuries past,

  • including that still preserved proclamation of, "Myrtis, you

  • suck well" found scrawled on one of the city's brothel walls.

  • Turns out that even after several millennia,

  • sex humor doesn't change one bit.

  • But it's not all ancient oral sex recommendations

  • and brothel rates.

  • While there's little written evidence

  • of pre-eruption Pompeii, many detailed and well-preserved

  • frescoes on the city walls shed some light on the civilization.

  • One of the more prominent examples

  • is the difference in skin tone portrayed

  • between men and women, the former being golden bronze,

  • while the latter appearing in lighter tones while

  • gilded with jewelry and among fancy furnishings.

  • According to scholars, this dramatic difference

  • indicates that women had a higher rank

  • than their male counterparts.

  • Their pale skin a sign of indoor living and luxury.

  • [LOW DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

  • Originating from Vulcan, the Roman god a fire,

  • the word volcano wasn't invented until Mount Etna's eruption

  • in the 1600s.

  • Before that the people of Pompeii

  • had no formal definition for the impending destructor

  • of their city.

  • It's probably no surprise to hear

  • that there was an abundance of warning signs leading up

  • to the eruption of the Vesuvius, all of which

  • were ignored by the unaware inhabitants below.

  • For starters, a massive earthquake

  • hit the mountain a few decades before,

  • something that locals failed to connect to the possibility

  • of an eruption.

  • Additionally, underground springs began drying up

  • and fish from the Sarno River began

  • to die due to the heavy, acidity in the water.

  • In other words, had the citizens of Pompeii

  • been even a little bit familiar with these warning signs,

  • we probably would know this as one of the biggest

  • near misses of history.

  • But that's not the only oversight that plague Pompeii.

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  • You would imagine that the discovery

  • of an ancient and apocalyptic burial ground

  • would immediately pop for anyone who came upon it,

  • but that actually wasn't the case for Pompeii.

  • The first remnants were found by a crew of workers in 1599,

  • initially in the form of wall frescoes coupled

  • with an inscription flat out naming

  • the buried city beneath them.

  • Amazingly, this wouldn't lead to full discovery.

  • The small hint of ruins were examined

  • by the Italian architect, Domenico Fontana,

  • who failed to identify the presence of a city

  • below the site.

  • It was then abandoned for another 150 years

  • before the King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon,

  • finally ordered an excavation in the late 1740s.

  • Never send an architect to do an archaeologist job.

  • Amazingly, this would not be the final flub

  • in the founding of Pompeii.

  • In October of 2018, scientists discovered

  • an overlooked and crucial piece of evidence.

  • Specifically, a date written in charcoal

  • marking two months after the assumed eruption

  • date of August 24th, 79 a.d.

  • Considering how fragile charcoal writing is,

  • archaeologists now speculate that this is highly probable

  • that the city was destroyed slightly later than originally

  • believed.

  • Is it the most exciting discovery?

  • Maybe not, unless you happen to be a hardcore Pompeii fanatic.

  • Which, who isn't?

  • [LOW DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

  • While it's commonly accepted that the citizens of Pompeii

  • died from suffocation due to ash,

  • new studies suggest that this is actually false.

  • In reality, the population of this doom metropolis

  • met death at the hands of the extreme heat from the blast.

  • Killing them instantly with exposure

  • to temperatures far over 1,000 degrees.

  • Well that sounds like a literal hell on Earth.

  • The grotesque upside was that the blanket of ash and searing

  • gas is also the reason that Pompeii's victims and culture

  • were seemingly untouched and preserved for over 2000 years.

  • Amazingly, this process preserved the terrified bodies

  • better than any modern method of embalming.

  • So we guess the lesson here is that if you wish to immortalize

  • yourself long after your death, there's

  • no better method than living near an angry volcano.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • The aforementioned preservation of countless ash

  • consumed victims is undoubtedly the most famous aspect

  • of the Pompeii disaster.

  • It also yielded countless macabre vignettes

  • detailing the final and personal moments

  • of the city's inhabitants.

  • One such story comes from the discovery

  • of a man who managed to flee the initial eruption,

  • only to be thwarted soon after.

  • And by thwarted, we mean he was seemingly crushed

  • by a gigantic hot flying rock.

  • The stone, speculated as the lining of a door,

  • was jettisoned through the air by the volcano's

  • pyroclastic flow.

  • From there it landed squarely on the head

  • of our unlucky escapee.

  • And while you may think that this is what did him in,

  • the discovered truth turned out to be far more surprising

  • and even more grisly.

  • After further investigation, it was later

  • revealed that the skull of the victim

  • was intact, meaning that he was merely trapped and later killed

  • by the heat and ash.

  • To make matters worse, lesions found

  • on the bones led scientists to believe

  • he was already suffering from an infection that

  • inhibited his movement.

  • Talk about bad luck.

  • But it's not all gloom.

  • One surprising discovery happened

  • when archaeologists took a closer look

  • at the victim's teeth.

  • By using multi-layer CT scans on the skeletons,

  • scientists found near perfect chompers

  • on the 3D reconstructions of the bodies.

  • Their exemplary dental work was thanks

  • to a combination of a diet of fruit and vegetables,

  • coupled with an extremely high level of fluorine existing

  • around the volcano.

  • So hey, at least our stone crushed skeleton

  • died with a minimal dental bill.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • While historians disagree on the exact total of casualties,

  • some estimate the body count at Pompeii to be roughly 30,000.

  • While this seems like an ungodly amount,

  • it's not nearly the most deadly eruption

  • in the history of volcanoes.

  • Out of the top five deadliest eruptions, the city of Pompeii

  • doesn't even make the cut.

  • The winner being the lesser known 1815 eruption

  • of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which claimed

  • the lives of 80,000 people.

  • So why do we remember Pompeii so well?

  • Most likely because of the terrifying aftermath

  • so carefully preserved by nature.

  • No clearer picture of desperation and terror

  • has been found quite like the city of Pompeii.

  • The bodies, many still being discovered,

  • depict a futile attempt to escape the inevitable.

  • One of the saddest examples being a 1990 discovery

  • that many of the citizens attempted

  • to use their tunics as masks to ward off the sulfurous air.

  • There's even a single firsthand account

  • of the devastation written by one

  • of the few witnesses of the eruption

  • in a letter between Pliny the Younger two Cornelius Tacitus.

  • The aftermath was described as, "a dense black cloud spreading

  • over the earth like a flood accompanied

  • by the shrieks of women, wailing of infants,

  • and the shouting of men."

  • The emotional account goes on with Younger recounting

  • that, "some prayed for death in their terror of dying

  • and that many beseeched the aid of the gods,

  • but still more imagined there were no gods left

  • and that the universe was plunged

  • into eternal darkness forever more."

  • Just imagine having no knowledge of volcanoes

  • and witnessing what was surely the end of all times.

  • This is the whore internalized by the city of Pompeii.

  • And yet, it's not the scariest detail of this disaster.

  • Mount Vesuvius, a landmark towering at 4,200 feet,

  • remains the only active volcano on mainland Europe

  • and has erupted over 50 times that we're aware of.

  • Today, it is surrounded by over three million people,

  • making it one of the most dangerous volcanoes

  • due to the potential consequences

  • to another eruption.

  • In other words, there's no saying if the events of 79 a.d.

  • will be the final tragedy to befall Pompeii.

  • But there's no harm in crossing our fingers, right?

  • What do you think is your worst case, natural disaster

  • scenario?

  • Let us know in our comments below and while you're at it,

  • check out some of these other videos of Our Weird History.

Whether it be from Mount Vesuvius or director Paul W.S.

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