Pompeii, with Vesuvius towering
Along with Pliny the Elder, the only other noble casualties of the eruption
to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Jewish princess Drusilla and the procurator Antonius Felix) and his
wife.
to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Jewish princess Drusilla and the procurator Antonius Felix) and his
wife.
Estimates of the population of Pompeii range from 10,000[30]
to 25,000,
and Herculaneum is thought to have had a population of about 5,000. It
is not known how many people the eruption killed, although around 1,150 remains
of bodies – or casts made of their impressions in the ash deposits – have been
recovered in and around Pompeii.The
remains of about 350 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults
discovered in 1980). However these
figures must represent a great underestimation of the total number of deaths
over the region affected by the eruption.
The skeleton called the "Ring Lady" unearthed in Herculaneum
Thirty-eight percent of the victims at Pompeii were found in the ash fall
deposits, the majority inside buildings. These are thought to have been killed
mainly by roof collapses, with the smaller number of victims found outside of
buildings probably being killed by falling roof slates or by larger rocks thrown
out by the volcano. This differs from modern experience, since over the last
four hundred years only around 4% of victims have been killed by ash falls
during explosive eruptions. The remaining 62% of remains found at Pompeii were
in the pyroclastic surge deposits, and thus
were probably killed by them – probably from a combination of suffocation
through ash inhalation and blast and debris thrown around. In contrast to the
victims found at Herculaneum, examination of cloth, frescoes and skeletons show
that it is unlikely that high temperatures were a significant cause.
Herculaneum, which was much closer to the crater, was saved from tephra falls
by the wind direction, but was buried under 23 metres (75 ft) of material
deposited by pyroclastic surges. It is likely that most, or all, of the victims
in this town were killed by the surges, particularly given evidence of high
temperatures found on the skeletons of the victims found in the arched vaults,
and the existence of carbonised wood in many of the buildings.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were never rebuilt, although surviving townspeople
and probably looters did undertake extensive salvage work after the
destructions. The eruption changed the course of the Sarno River and raised the sea
beach, so that Pompeii was now neither on the river nor adjacent to the
coast.
The towns' locations were eventually forgotten until their accidental
rediscovery in the 18th century. Vesuvius itself underwent major changes – its
slopes were denuded of vegetation and its summit had changed considerably due to
the force of the eruption.
