5C Mac Magness Why Pompeii is the Greatest Mystery of Europe

Introduction Mount Vesuvius, a volcano near the Bay of Naples in Italy, is hundreds of thousands of years old and has erupted more than 50 times. Its most famous eruption took place in the year 79 A.D., when the volcano buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii under a thick carpet of volcanic ash.

The unexpected catastrophe It is certain that when the eruption of Vesuvius started on the morning of 24 August, AD 79, it caught the local population utterly unprepared. Although at the same time, as we now know in retrospect, all the tell-tale signs were there to warn them.

Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood.'Let us leave the road while we can still see,'I said,'or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.'We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.

Here are some facts about the city of Pompeii. Pompeii was an ancient city in southern Italy. The remains of the settlement are located near to Naples. The city of Pompeii was built at the foot of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Pompeii predates Roman rule.

Pompeii was a large Roman town in the Italian region of Campania which was completely buried in volcanic ash following the eruption of nearby Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE.