Why is pompeii important today

Its buildings were intact. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread!

Many scholars say that the excavation of Pompeii played a major role in the neo-Classical revival of the 18th century. Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Located just east of the Roman Forum, the massive stone amphitheater known as the Colosseum was commissioned around A.

He is best known for his debaucheries, political murders, persecution of Christians and a passion for music that led to the probably He shrewdly combined military The son of a great military leader, he escaped family intrigues to take the throne, but his Greek philosophy and rhetoric moved fully into Latin for the first time in the speeches, letters and dialogues of Cicero B. A brilliant lawyer and the first of his family to achieve Roman office, Cicero was one of the Julius Caesar was a renowned general, politician and scholar in ancient Rome who conquered the vast region of Gaul and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he became dictator of the Roman Empire.

Despite his brilliant military prowess, his political skills and his The Roman politician and general Mark Antony 83—30 B. His romantic and political In B. He then marched his massive army across the Pyrenees and Alps into central Italy in what would be remembered as one of the most By the time the First Punic War broke out, Rome had become the dominant power throughout the Italian Live TV.

The darkness Pliny described drew the final curtain on an era in Pompeii. But the disaster also preserved a slice of Roman life. 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. The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 caused vast damage — fires were started, rooftops were swept away, columns collapsed.

Most of the inhabitants of the town escaped into the surrounding countryside although we have no idea how many of those died there. They took with them small valuables, like coins and jewellery, and lamps. Organic materials, like sheets, blankets, clothes, curtains, were mostly destroyed. In the years and centuries after the eruption, salvagers explored Pompeii, tunnelling through walls and removing valuable objects.

The earliest formal excavations in the 18th century were little more than treasure-hunting exercises, which means that records of finds are poor or non-existent. There is also evidence that some finds, such as wall-paintings and pottery, were deliberately destroyed by the excavators because they were not considered to be of high enough quality!

All these factors make Pompeii a challenging site to study — much like most other archaeological sites. What was life like for the Romans who lived in Pompeii, pre-eruption?

Not that different from our own, as Mary Beard reveals in her A to Z of life in the ancient town of Pompeii …. It is commonly known that in AD 63 a massive earthquake caused major damage in the town.

Scholars now agree, however, that this was merely one in a series of earthquakes that shook Pompeii and the surrounding area in the years before AD 79, when Vesuvius erupted. It is clear that some buildings were repaired several times in this period. In fact, Pompeii must have resembled a giant building site, with reconstruction work taking place in both public buildings and private houses.

In the past scholars argued that the town was abandoned by the wealthy in this period and taken over by a mercantile class. These days we see the scale of rebuilding as a sign of massive investment in the city — possibly sponsored by the emperor — by inhabitants who sought to improve their urban environment. When the amphitheatre was first excavated in , a remarkable series of frescoes [mural paintings] adorned its parapet wall. There were large painted panels of wild animals , such as a bear and a bull facing off, tied together by a length of rope so that neither could escape the other, and a referee standing between two gladiators.

On either side of these, smaller panels depicted winged victories, or candelabra-lit spaces. The frescoes probably were painted on the podium wall in the period immediately before the eruption. Within a few months of their excavation, however, they had been completely destroyed by frost, leaving no traces of their presence that can be seen by visitors today.

Luckily for us, drawings had been made of them when they were excavated, so we have some idea of the original colourful decoration of the amphitheatre. Twelve fragments of these frescoes survive: one depicts a beggar being offered something by a woman wearing a green tunic, and another shows a boy being whipped — this sometimes has been considered evidence of the presence of a school in the forum area.