Pomeii, as it was...

Last Saturday, I took a day trip with AUR to Pompeii. I actually woke up on time and we were EARLY to meet the bus. So early, in fact, that the bar we usually get breakfast from in the morning was still closed! The bus left from school at 7am, and I took a nice 3 hour nap for the whole ride. We arrived in Pompeii around 10 or 10:30 and split up to take a tour. Pompeii is an ancient city, perfectly preserved by the ash from Mount Vesuvius when it erupted in 79 AD and covered the city. Our tour guide was really good. She did a great job of showing us even the slightest details around the city and what their significance was. We started out walking through the city walls and stopping to see the smaller of the theaters. She showed us the acoustics and how if you are standing in the middle, the sound echo’s through the entire theatre. It’s pretty amazing how smart the people back then were without any technology or anything to help them build their structures. (As my tour guide said, back then they had the money and not the technology, now we have the technology but not the money!) We then walked through the streets of Pompeii and visited one of the large homes. The walls were covered in beautiful frescos- original from before the eruption. They we’re chipping, but for the most part you were able to see the pictures as they were 2000 years ago. We also got to see the brothels – a huge tourist attraction there- of course those fresco’s (or “menus”) were also preserved and quite vivid. We walked to the forum, which was the city’s commercial, religious and political center. The forum was dominated by the Temple of Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman Pantheon. It was an epic structure, probably bigger than most of the temples in the Roman Forum. Towards the back of the Forum, there were casts of Pompeiians, just as they were when they were covered by ash and lava. This, to me, was the most interesting thing to see. When Vesuvius Erupted, 2000 Pompeii citizens suffocated under ash and their bodies were buried in volcanic debris. While excavating, modern archeologists detected hollow spaces in the rock, created when the victim’s bodies decomposed. By filling the holes with plaster, archeologists were able to create molds of the people in their last moments. Literally, you can see every feature in their face, its eerie. We continued on to the basilica, the bath and some of the more famous homes- such as the house of the tragic poet and the house of the faun. All the homes basically looked the same layout wise, but the art and gardens in each one were unique. I assume we walked into all the rich homes, because they were huge! One of them even covering and entire city block! (House of the Faun) Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the house of the Vetti, which is the famous bachelor pad of two brothers who enjoyed entertaining women. However, we did pass many “fast food joints”, the ancient McDonalds. I guess times really haven’t changed.
After a quick stop to eat, we were back on the bus and heading home. It was a day filled with history and archeology- It makes me wonder, 2000 years from now will people be touring the ruins of Philadelphia? Pompeii was such an important city in the Roman era, and now it’s just ruins. Is that what everything’s destined to become?