Jamin's Pompeii project

Pompeii was a small Italian town by the Bay of Naples, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The town was near the city of Herculaneum and situated on the lower slopes of Vesuvius because the volcano’s soil was rich and fertile for the villagers’ crops. In the year 87 AD, the volcano unexpectedly erupted and death fell on Pompeii.

It was one o’ clock in the afternoon when the villagers first noticed smoke twisting out of the volcano and rising many miles high.

The people dismissed it as nothing of importance and carried on with their normal day, but when warm ash started falling from the sky, they knew that something was very wrong. Frantically, some of the villagers ran from Pompeii carrying their valuables while others stayed in what they thought was the safety of their houses. By the early afternoon there was no longer ash falling from the sky, but small stones. Soon afterwards the stones started to get bigger and people became more and more frightened. Many of them prayed to the various gods for mercy as they feared for their lives, but Vesuvius continued its onslaught upon the villages. By nightfall, houses were being buried in the small stones and it became dangerous to walk outside because of the risk of being hit by one of the larger volcanic boulders.

The Gladiators, who were the heroes of their time, attempted to rescue the trapped villagers but it was decided that it was way too dangerous for them to continue their attempts. In the meantime, the people of the nearby seaside villages tried to mount rescues in their boats, but they were soon lost in the thick and choking smoke and they perished.

At midnight, the volcano spewed a dense cloud of ash and carbon dioxide, which soon moved down to Pompeii. Many of the people who were still alive in their houses prayed for mercy until their dying breaths. The boiling hot cloud of ash and sulphur burned the remaining people instantly. By morning the next day, the town of Pompeii had become a ghost town.

People prayed to their dieing breaths.