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Subscribe to RSSExactly 1,933 years after Mount Vesuvius' eruption buried the Roman city of Pompeii and its residents in a lethal blanket of ash, the catastrophe is being recounted as it was back then — only this time as a stream of tweets on Twitter.
The minute-by-minute reconstruction of Pompeii's destruction on Aug. 24 in the year 79 is based on the tale of Pliny the Elder, a Roman scholar and admiral who took command of the city's evacuation. The last day of Pompeii will be retweeted as it happened, starting at 10 a.m. ET Friday, by @Elder_Pliny, a ghost who's being brought to life by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Why Denver? It's because the museum is due to host an exhibit about Pompeii titled "A Day in Pompeii," opening Sept. 14. The museum says it'll be offering an interactive map tracing Pliny's movements on that fateful day.
The old guy has already gotten a premonition of disaster: "The gods must be roaming the earth," he tweeted on Wednesday. "I felt the ground shake this morning."
Don't tell @Elder_Pliny, but the big day is not going to end well for him. In real life, his story had to be told by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who provided pretty much the only eyewitness account of what happened. In his letters to Tacitus, the younger Pliny describes how his uncle sailed into the chaos:
"Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal; debris from the mountain blocks the shore. He paused for a moment wondering whether to turn back as the helmsman urged him. 'Fortune helps the brave,' he said. ..."
If @Elder_Pliny's tweets are even half as gripping, they'll be a must-read for Follow Friday.
After the eruption and ashfall, the city was abandoned and largely forgotten. Centuries later, the archaeological excavation of the city revealed a freeze-frame of everyday life for first-century Romans, from their brothels and trash heaps to their high-class homes. Pompeii has fallen on another round of hard times recently, due to modern-day deterioration — but the site still ranks as one of the archaeological wonders of the world. Here are more of the recent revelations from Pompeii:
- Pompeii couple reunited in marble inscription
- Fish sauce used to date Pompeii's destruction
- Archaeologists re-create the Pompeii diet
- Residents of ancient Pompeii liked fast food
- Scientists figure out how art was seen in Pompeii
- Heat, not suffocation, killed Vesuvius' victims
You can take a virtual tour of Pompeii's present-day ruins using Google Street View, and PublicVR has been working on a three-dimensional virtual reconstruction of the city's theater district as it was during its ancient heyday. If you can't make it to Denver for "A Day in Pompeii," there's also a "Last Days of Pompeii" exhibit opening next month at the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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This is an interesting idea, but as for Twitter ... I'm just not a fan of the whole idea. I think it's beyond silly.
More-so even than posting on these discussion threads, "Twitter" seems to me the height of self-involvement and conceit; to throw our every brief thought and action out into cyberspace in the belief that we are that important!
I understand that each individual Twitter message is referred to as a "Tweet." From my perspective the proper diminutive moniker for Twitter users should be ..."Twits."
;-)
Just my tuppence.
Your twitter experience will vary based on who you choose to follow. You'd be surprised at the wisdom you can find in 140 characters or less. For every Belieber or Kardashian, there is a Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) and a Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama). Or do you consider them twits as well?
How about people who have overthrown totalitarian governments with protests organized via twitter? How was that self-involved or conceited? Human communication may not make much sense to you, but I find it hard to consider the ability to instantly connect and share ideas with people around the world (without racking up a huge phone bill) as a bad thing.
Sure, there are a lot of idiots on twitter. But you don't have to follow them. Twitter is entirely what you make of it.
One word of advice, though...a lot of people on twitter will point out your lack of originality if you tweet jokes as old as "twitter users should be called twits."
Ya, I've stayed far away from Twitter also, and I'm sure as heck not going to 'follow' anybody. I have enough trouble following my own thoughts, let alone some other jackass!
@Kenny Vee
Ah, well Kenny... there you go. You have just helpfully reinforced for me that my avoidance of signing up for Twitter is the right one for me. Thanks, I owe you one. Not being a Twitter user I actually deluded myself into thinking my "Twits" observation was original and amusing (rather than an old joke). Oh well, when you get down to the brass tacks of life, self-amusement is what counts, anyway, right?
I'm with Doug on this. I spend too much time already just chasing my own tail, without having to also find time for 'following' others.
Cheers!
PS. I thought people who followed others were called "stalkers"? Hey, maybe that can be the next competitive social network? "STALKER"
One could add that today's texts and tweets, along with the deteriorating standards of education and literacy in this country which are joyfully endorsed by mass media, are nothing less than Orwell's Newspeak. Perfect companion's to today's 'reality' shows (that have little if anything real about them) which can be equated to Doublethink described by George Orwell as:
Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
Nineteen Eighty-Four. Part II, Chapter X: The Theory and Practice of Oligarchal Collectivism.
Very nicely done, a pity that history will repeat itself one day soon - and I fear for the victims in that disaster - there will be far more than before.
Yes, you're right. It's only a matter of time before Italy will have another disaster because of Vesuvius.
Living in the Northwest, I have seen firsthand, with the eruption of Mt. St. Helens what can happen near our own Northwest Cascades volcanoes. The frightening thing about that is that St. Helens is a relatively small volcano, and pretty isolated from any large populations. Not so for Mt. Ranier just to its North. A truly HUGE volcano, many, many times the size of St. Helens, which in its past eruptions has affected the land areas around it reaching clear beyond the present day cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and dozens of other cities in Washington State. And Ranier is merely dormant, and occasionally rumbles.
In 1979 I visited an exhibit in NYC marking the 900th anniversary of the Pompeii disaster. Forty years later I had the opportunity to visit Pompeii itself. This event has made its mark on our imaginations. Nobody can quite realize the horror those ancient peoples must have felt. But to see the plaster casts of the victims tells its own story. As I stood there amidst the ruins and stared at Vesuvius (which has not been venting these last sixty years or so) I thought, what a disaster it will be when this mountain strikes out again. And it will . . .
In Latin class back in college, one project was to translate a letter written by Pliny the Younger, who was observing the disaster from a point at the tip of the bay, a relatively safe distance away. I only recall that he mentioned reports from those who got out early, that before the eruption, the wagons in the fields were moving by themselves--without horses attached. That tilting alone would have put wings on my feet. He mentioned as well, that during the eruption, balls of fire fell from the skies. I think his father, Pliny the Elder, was killed in that eruption.
The only thing else I recall from Latin class was the modern day quote, "Latin is a dead language, you see, because first it killed the Romans, now it's killing me."
I wonder how many were smart enough around mid day to realise something was quite wrong and got out.
Shouldn't it be in Latin?
I have visited Pompeii and on a beautiful sunny day. There were not a lot of tourists there at the time and you could walk through wide lanes and sit in reconstructed open amphitheaters and just try to imagine what it must have been like. It was quiet and peaceful as we strolled among the excavated ruins to see the numerous frescoes and art work in the various public buildings and private homes. Bakeries, the stores of wine merchants, the public baths and various other buildings have been excavated and restored to the point that you might be able to get a feeling of everyday life. To say that it was spooky would be an understatement.
The thing that most surprises you is just how far away lies Mt. Vesuvius. It is a prominent feature on the landscape to be sure but it is miles away and seems too far to have caused such terrible damage. The city of Herculaneum was even closer to the flanks of the volcano and while bigger than Pompeii was just leveled with no trace of the city left. Nothing like Pompeii. This a beautiful area of Italy and one can understand how a city like Pompeii could be considered a resort at the time. If you ever have the chance to visit southern Italy, go to Pompeii and try to feel the vibrations of life 2,000 years in the past.
This is completely retarded. Completely.
as you are. go back to bed.
Tweet# 1: Hmmm, ground just shook.
Tweet# 2: What the heck was that loud boom?
Tweet# 3: Oh look it's snowing, wait...
Tweet# 4: ahhhhhh!!!!!!
So, it was "re-tweeted"?
So, am I to understand that the citizens of Pompeii "tweeted" it originally and that now, in the 21st century, we're "re-tweeting" it?
Now that I think about it, I swear I saw some guy in the video running around like an idiot with an Iphone, "OMG, The friggin Mountain is exploding"
Very creative and informative. It still makes me wonder why people stayed there. But I guess even now people refuse to evacuate before fires, hurricanes, and other disasters. Thanks for sharing this.
I found it very interesting, educational, surreal. Those poor people not knowing what was going to hit them. I hope they didn't suffer but died instantly.
@ Harpist:
Some certainly died -- probably fairly swiftly -- by being hit by fiery volcanic bombs or even small stones falling from great heights. Some died in building collapses as the ash on the roofs of the buildings they huddled in accumulated so thickly that the supports failed.
Many were probably killed, drowned perhaps on a sea thick with floating pumice, as the boats and ships they attempted to escape in were bombarded, overwhelmed by thickening ash or simply capsized due to overloading (since the harbor has never been excavated, we can't know how many died there).
Many who must've fled -- too few are left in the city itself to account for the entire population -- were probably killed on the roads as the eruption overtook them in the open. Many simply suffocated as they ran through the fine ash already laid down on the road. If they fled towards Herculaneum, they were fleeing towards almost certain destruction. Herculaneum disappeared even more totally than Pompeii, covered in 20 meters or more of ash from the pyroclastic flows that destroyed that city. If they fled, early on, towards Stabiae, and made it beyond that town, they may have escaped with their lives. Stabiae was also lost to the eruption, as were many other towns and villages around the mountain which have never been found, but Vesuvius' fury was beginning to wane that far from the mountain itself.
Of those who did not escape Pompeii, many who remained died of suffocation -- their last throes frozen in the ash -- as the ash simply accumulated around them.
Finally, those who were left were killed by the last murderous pyroclastic floes -- fast-moving clouds of super-heated gas, ash and debris -- that slid down the slopes of the mountain like a herd of roaring locomotives. The final breaths of those still remaining -- taken to scream as their skin burned away -- seared their lungs and internal organs and froze beneath the ash their final silent screams. Considering that, subjectively those last few seconds must've seemed an eternity. In Herculaneum, in the moments after their deaths from the flows, the brains inside the victim's heads boiled so suddenly that their skulls fractured as the steam was released. This probably happened in Pompeii as well, but the victims would've been beyond knowing at that point.
Of course, those last trapped souls had already experienced the long terror of what they must have thought was the wrath of their gods.
Dying by volcano is seldom an easy way to go.
as.a.child.I.was.engrossed.with.the.idea.of.death.by.volcano.after.reading.about.Pompeii.in.history.class---it.just.gave.me.the.chills.thinking.about.it---especially.after.seeing.pictures.of.the.plaster.casts.and.reading.translations.of.Pliny.the.Younger....It.must.have.been.horrible
In the blink of an eye were all vulnerable to natures wrath--be it cosmic bombardment, a Super solar flare aimed directly at Earth, a Super Volcano, a Meteor, a Comet, a black hole death ray, etc, etc. Frail life be.
... and the corruption of the Italian government that drains funds raised from millions of visitors every year.
The money charged to visitors at Pompeii and all the other examples of Rome's patrimony and the rich history of Italy often ends up in the pockets of fat cats. Little of it ever finds its way into stabilizing sites or further excavations. Modern-day Italians should be ashamed that they allow their government and bureaucrats to be so corrupt. Perhaps they simply can't escape the habit, but you really do get the government you deserve (as Americans ought to realize some day).
CENTRAL Oregon has it's pyroclastic-cloud flow called the Rattlesnake Formation that happen here roughly 5 million years ago. Well done Denver Museum! I now can sense what it was like around here back then to created this molten marshmallow rock covering our country. Our layer is over a hundred feet thick and it must have glowed red during night for decades - if any thing survived?
Rocks expelled from the fires of the earth cool pretty quickly, Dave, when exposed to the air. Even if it were lava, rather than ash and debris, a crust forms almost immediately. But you're right about wondering what might've survived. Not much in the path of the flow, especially if the ignimbrite capping the Rattlesnake Formation is very thick.
How quickly the area recovered after the eruption would depend partly on the depth of the flow deposit. In photos, it looks like only a few meters, if that, atop the gravels of the Rattlesnake, but it's hard to find specific stats on the internet (most of the information is like reading an abstract).
You can see how far restored the area is around St Helens after thirty years (there's an excellent time lapse video at ). At St Helens, creatures that sheltered in burrows returned very quickly since many survived. Elk and deer wandered across the edges of the ashfall dropping seeds in their excreta which took root. Birds carried seeds over the entire expanse and many seeds struggled up through the ash.
It's a fascinating process. Little things populate blasted areas pretty quickly. It's the megafauna that takes a while longer.
This is the first thing I've seen that made me consider opening a twitter account.
Okay, that is sad. ;)
I mean, my cats have a twitter account. I don't. Way too much sharing. But if the pathetic tweets of doomed people is the only thing you can find of interest via that channel, don't bother. Just read the front page of the newspaper.
:)
It was Bush's fault.