JOE: Hey mate, how's it going?
NAT: Hey good thanks, just enjoying the beautiful view of Mount Vesuvius from my luxury mansion here in Pompeii.
JOE: It sure is good to be a Roman.
NAT: Oh, it sure is. A rich Roman at that, yeah sorry. Oooh, smoke. I love it when it does that.
JOE: Does it look a little big to you?
Alright, let me tell you all about Pompeii. It was a city in what's today known as Italy. But a couple of millennia ago, the Roman Empire was in charge, and lots of rich Romans had holiday homes there. They also had slaves, but yeah. Pompeii was full of luxury villas, bustling taverns and amazing art. And the reason we know so much about it is because of something that happened almost 2,000 years ago.
JOE: Woah.
NAT: It's okay, I'm sure it's nothing. Here, have some grapes.
You see, Pompeii and the nearby city of Herculaneum were built in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, part of a chain of volcanoes that runs along between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. Previous eruptions had made the soil here fertile and perfect for farming, which is why Pompeii was so rich. In fact, they even thought of the volcano as sacred. But in the year 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius started to erupt, spewing out tonnes of volcanic ash and rock. It's an event that's been retold in many books, movies and TV shows. We also have a first-hand account from a famous roman author, Pliny the Younger.
PLINY: A dreadful black cloud was torn by gushing flames and great tongues of fire much-magnified like lightning.
NAT: It's fine don't worry about it. This happens all the time.
BLAKE: Alright I'm outta here, boys.
JOE: Fair.
While some people escaped, thousands died as Pompeii and Herculaneum were covered in metres of ash. While it did destroy the cities, the ash also preserved them for centuries, and when archaeologists started digging into the ruins of Pompeii back in the 1700s, they came across buildings and artworks that had been preserved in amazing detail. They also found the remains of people. The ash had covered their bodies and hardened to create a natural mould, allowing us to see their last moments in amazing and creepy detail.
Over the years, the discoveries have kept coming, and Pompeii and Herculaneum have taught us heaps about life in ancient Rome. And last month, archaeologists came across another exciting find. It's a chariot. It's the first of its kind to be found in one piece. Experts reckon that back in the day, it was used for special ceremonies, or parades. It was actually discovered at an illegal dig site. That's a bit of a problem for archaeologists around here, locals wanting to find their own treasures, who risk damaging important sites. They say there's still heaps more waiting to be discovered here, and more that we can learn about this lost world.
