Finishing Up Campania

Today I'm going to finish up Campania, but first my current status. We're currently entering the home stretch of the semester, so things are a little tense. I have a draft for my final project due Monday, a paper due Wednesday and a presentation Thursday, and then finals the week after. Fortunately, one of the perks of being a predominantly Catholic country, we have Monday off thanks to Immaculate Conception. Other fun facts: today in Bible study (I participate in a Bible study with two other Catholics, four Christians, and a very open and curious atheist. We meet once a week for an hour, pretty chill) we were discussing Jesus' trial and his death. I brought up the point about salvation, that even though Jesus "lost" (got himself killed) he won in the sense that he was resurrected, just like we as Christians believe in the resurrection and forgiveness, so that no matter what we still are loved and will come to good things as long as we keep the faith. In a real life, real time example, I've been reminded of my home a lot recently. My parents are looking forward to having me home and I'm looking forward to being home. This hasn't been the easiest semester socially, but I've known that I'll at least be able to return to a place that I am loved for who I am regardless of what happens. I also found out tonight that I'll be returning to my home dorm at school, which is another huge weight off my shoulders. Each dorm at ND works like a Hogwarts house, and there was a possibility I wouldn't make it back into my house, but I received the email that I'm going to get to go back to my second home, where I'm loved for who I am regardless of what happens. Cheers to two weeks, I'm going to make the most of it with my friends here, but I know that I'm going home shortly. Anyhow, enough of the sappy stuff and let's get some photos and commentary going.

Our last day of the Campania trip, we headed North and West into the mountains. We first stopped by a Roman villa, similar to one we saw at Pompeii, that was also preserved via the volcano:

The house

Now I'm at the house level looking up

Pig 

You can't tell, but these are all ancient cloth samples, with the bottom right one being cotton

Ancient bread!

Grains

Dice 

Amazing how little some tools change over centuries

We then moved on to Capua, that supposedly has some ties to Spartacus, the gladiator slave who started a rebellion in central Italy around 100 BCE. Fun fact, remember that time I gave a snapshot of Roman history? If not, here's the link (http://classicistadventures.blogspot.it/2014/08/a-brief-history-of-romans.html). And remember how I said all triumvirates had a useless guy? Well useless guy A from the first triumvirate, a fellow by the name of Crassus (regarded as one of the richest men in all of history) put down the slave revolt. So while Caesar was making his way through Spain and Northern Europe, and Pompey was conquering everything from Italy East, Crassus put down a slave revolt that was centered on Mt. Vesuvius. Yay Crassus!

In Capua is a huge amphitheater (second only to the one in Rome) except in this one you can go underground!!!!!

Well that's a relief! 

The one downside of Capua is their business hours. They had a couple really good looking food stands, including a burger joint. We were there at 2 pm on a Saturday, and there wasn't a single pizzeria, burger place, kebab store, sandwich shack, bar, open. Not a one! How are you supposed to build an economy if you're not working 2 pm on Saturdays! We wound up going to an all healthy, organic place, which, sold relatively cheap food. It wasn't burgers and I dislike organic, so it was a lose, but my hands were tied. We then went to a church that was supposed to have a temple underneath it, saw neither the temple nor inscription and then went to Rome, but not before seeing the sun set on Campania!

With sun

Without!

This weekend (maybe tomorrow?) I'll catch up a post a week summary of the week after Campania and this week and maybe finally get caught up to the present era!

Pompeii Day 2

One of our professors has worked on archaeology at Pompeii the past couple of years, so we spent a second day at Pompeii, whereas past years they've traveled to other locations in Campania. Here's some of what I saw second day, as well as some photos from the modern city Pompeii:

A boat

Ancient oven for baking bread

Ancient mirror

House of the Fawn

And one more dead guy

Two story house, beautifully preserved

Paris!

Nice car...I wouldn't fit, but still nice

So here's the deal with Pompeii, since I'm sure you've been wondering. Vesuvius is very much active. There was an earthquake about 20 years ago, which means an eruption is due at any time (same time frame as the eruption in 79 CE). When it does go, there's lots of problems. Time frame for you, based on the 79 CE explosion:

Noon Day 1-Vesuvius erupts with giant cloud of gas and stone, complete darkness beneath cloud

4-6 am Day 2- Stones fall from cloud at rate of 6 inches an hour (small stones), roofs collapse, lightning and earthquakes as well, eventually, cloud collapses, surges of hot gas and ash flow over and through surrounding area. 

8 am Day 2- After several more surges of gas, reaching temperatures of 212-750 Fº, the eruption reaches its climax. In total about 6 ft of debris in some spots, for a radius of 60 miles around the volcano. 

When the 79 eruption happened, it took about 20 hours for the eruption to reach its peak and then to begin to cool down, although there is belief minor activity continued for several days afterwards. However, people die with the first wave of hot gas and ash, at 4 am, so in reality there's only 16 hours before everyone dies, give or take an hour or two. The current population that would be affected by an eruption from Vesuvius is about 1,000,000 people. Ergo, if Vesuvius starts to go, 1 million people will need to evacuate the area in less than 16 hours, and even that's being generous on time. It's scary to think that this will happen in our lifetime, but if the geologists are right, it should be in the next 10-15 years at most. The government has tried to encourage people to move elsewhere, but if you had the prime real estate, would you move for an eruption that may or may not ever happen? Scary stuff, and it's easily preventable if people would heed warnings. On that cheery note, goodnight!

Casual Pompeii Day 1

So Pompeii. We spent two days at this ancient graveyard and saw more or less the entire ancient city, which was so graciously preserved courtesy of Vesuvius. We saw everything from ancient brothels, to baths, to theaters, to walls, to pretty much anything you would expect in an ancient city. The pictures speak for themselves to some degree, but I'll caption the ones I feel need further explanation. Just to warn the more squeamish of my readers: there are bodies in this post that have been completely preserved by the ash. I've been told that they can cause some discomfort to some people. Be forewarned. On a different note, three weeks from yesterday I'll be back in the USA, so I'm now balancing end of the year essays, longing for home, and trying to make the most of my time left abroad.

People complained I didn't post enough pictures of the group, so here's part of our crew standing with Vesuvius at our backs 

And in case you've forgotten what your writer and photographer looks like

Theater 

View from the theater

Courtyard outside amphitheater

Specimen A-The site dog. This species can get extremely large off of scraps of food from tourists and in this case, handout from a local butcher. This pup is named Vesuvio and he's a big dog. We gave him a bit of a workout, since when he realized we had a frisbee, he started to put in some hustle to try to catch it. The others felt bad and finally tossed one from him to get, with the expectation he would give it back. He proceeded to put his teeth right through the thing and could only be persuaded to let it go when we placed a pringle on his nose, forcing him to choose between the discomfort of the pringle and the desire to keep the disk.

These are dog houses and tombstones. Don't know how the big guy gets in here, but supposedly this is where he sleeps

Body one

Preserved dog skeleton

Body 2 

Body 3 

Ancient lego? 

Fresco of silverware, remarkably preserved

Years of traffic to produce those deep ruts

Sunset in Pompeii after Day 1

More tomorrow hopefully!