- Feb 5, 2002
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The ash-encased city always manages to surprise.
The gems and figures were found in the remains of a villa in Pompeii. COURTESY CESARE ABBATE / ANSA
When Mount Vesuvius exploded nearly 2,000 years ago, the residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum were directly in its path. Some fled before the explosion, others tried to shelter in place, while still more attempted to flee. All those caught in the pyroclastic flows—fast-moving surges of toxic gas and superheated ash and rock—were killed instantly. (One study found evidence that their blood boiled and their skulls exploded.) Pliny the Younger, famed recollector of the eruption, wrote of a “thick black cloud advancing over the land behind us like a flood.”
The ash encased the cities in time, and every year brings new signs of Roman life. In Pompeii’s House of the Garden, archaeologists have now uncovered a large trove of amulets, gemstones, beads, and pendants, which are believed to have served mystical purposes, alongside the remains of 10 people.
“Imagine you live in Pompeii and you don’t have a cell phone,” says Eric Poehler, a Pompeii historian and archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, “and all of a sudden you realize your mom’s in one part of town and your brother’s in another part. What do you do? You go home.”
Continued below.
Found: A Stash of Mystical Charms and Amulets in Pompeii
The gems and figures were found in the remains of a villa in Pompeii. COURTESY CESARE ABBATE / ANSA
When Mount Vesuvius exploded nearly 2,000 years ago, the residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum were directly in its path. Some fled before the explosion, others tried to shelter in place, while still more attempted to flee. All those caught in the pyroclastic flows—fast-moving surges of toxic gas and superheated ash and rock—were killed instantly. (One study found evidence that their blood boiled and their skulls exploded.) Pliny the Younger, famed recollector of the eruption, wrote of a “thick black cloud advancing over the land behind us like a flood.”
The ash encased the cities in time, and every year brings new signs of Roman life. In Pompeii’s House of the Garden, archaeologists have now uncovered a large trove of amulets, gemstones, beads, and pendants, which are believed to have served mystical purposes, alongside the remains of 10 people.
“Imagine you live in Pompeii and you don’t have a cell phone,” says Eric Poehler, a Pompeii historian and archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, “and all of a sudden you realize your mom’s in one part of town and your brother’s in another part. What do you do? You go home.”
Continued below.
Found: A Stash of Mystical Charms and Amulets in Pompeii
