English
Italian
Pompeii, as everyone knows, presents a case that is of utmost importance for the study of antiquity, in that it shows us the conditions and contexts of ancient life which were suddenly interrupted in the night between the 24th and 25th of August, 79 AD, when the eruption of Vesuvius buried, under five meters of lapilli and ash, this small city on the Campanian coast. The unexpected end and complete burial of the city with all its furnishings, its inhabitants, and its activities conserved a patrimony of knowledge which we have been exploring for two and a half centuries.
From 1748 to today, continual campaigns of excavation have brought to light new elements of knowledge and an ever growing documentation. Aside from the artistic monuments which are well known to all (the frescoes, statues, tools of metal and other materials), lesser known aspects of life have been revealed to us: for example, the grass cut the day before the eruption, the food, the animals, and many other things that are not usually preserved in the archaeological world, because life continued and consumed the materials of preceding civilisations.
