- Pompeii was NOT destroyed suddenly.
- Pompeii was NOT swallowed by lava.
- They washed their clothes in pee.
The impression I'd always gotten is that everyone in ancient Pompeii was just having an ordinary day, minding his/her own business, when all of a sudden -- BOOM! Vesuvio exploded and every man, woman, and child died instantly, or at least within a matter of minutes, just enough time to drop everything and start fleeing in terror. Such a cruel tragedy!
The truth is that Mt. Vesuvius started to erupt around 1:00pm in the afternoon, and continued earthquaking and spewing ash and fireballs and volcanic what-not* into the sky for another eighteen and a half hours before it finally blew around 6:30am the following day.
This gradual eruption left plenty of time for any sensible person to flee, which they did -- of the city's 20,000 or so residents, it is estimated that 95% of them succeeded in escaping.
The remaining 1,000 or so who perished are what historians refer to as "stupid stubborn a$$holes who obviously don't know to run when a nearby volcano starts erupting."
I always wondered why all those people got swallowed up by lava -- I figured a healthy, full-grown human should be able to outrun the stuff, unless he/she tripped or something.
Turns out that what actually killed those famous plaster-cast people was a pyroclastic flow, an insta-death mixture of super-hot gas and volcanic what-not.
The pyroclastic wave is 1,000 degrees and travels around 450 miles per hour, so you cannot possibly hope to outrun it.
What can I possibly add to this revelation? That I feel sorry for the slaves who spent their lives stomping on dirty togae in the pee vat? That at least nobody would notice the smell if you wet yourself?
I can't believe nobody ever mentioned this whole pee-wash thing to me before.
* In fact, over nine feet of what-not had accumulated on the ground by the time Mt. V finally blew.
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