Also, I lost twenty-five pounds in Italy. Can we talk about that? EPIC.
So here's some pictures from Napoli and Pompeii. We took a train over, which was nice. It was an hour and a half and was originally supposed to be three hours, which made some people angry because I think they were planning on sleeping (and a lot of us were up late packing and doing work), but it turned out okay. We kept on keeping on, because that's what you do when you're a college student. :)
And I got some nice views of Naples.
We got lost.
But we eventually ended up on another train and in Pompeii with our guide, Rosario. She's awesome. And she loves to tell us cool things!
Basically, she and her architecture students had been uncovering an old house they found near Pompeii. She said that the house had collapsed in 62 CE then was rebuilt. It had a room like a hallway as well as a thermal bath. There was an earthquake in 62 CE--the reason for the house's collapse. Building on it continued after the earthquake.
There were frescoes in the house that looked like Venus and Eros, which bear a remarkable resemblance to the Madonna and Child. Dare I sense a connection? :) Pompeii as a city was surrounded by walls, and the fresoes were made using the city walls. The house was also made out of the old city wall, and we could see a bit of that as we walked around. The walls were made into a house because they weren't necessary anymore. The walls were built for wars, and when there were no more wars, they took down the wall. Pompeii became a Roman colony in 89 BC, and people who won the war got the property. After 89 CE, people began to rebuild, and the house that they had recovered was one of the best examples of a beautiful villa rebuilt (according to Dr. Rosario).
The bedrooms were dark for temperature control (since there was no air-conditioning or heating back then :P).
Pompeii features four different painting styles. In 1889, an archaeologist looked at some frescos (frescoes? I apologize in advance because I'm getting it wrong somewhere) and figured out the styles. They go in a chronological order.
First: 200-80 BCE (native Pompeii?)
Second: 80-20 BCE
Third: 20 BCE-30 CE
Fourth: 30-79 CE
The eruption happened around 79-80 CE. The Fourth style is often split into two styles because of the earthquake that happened in 62 CE.
We learned the difference between Herculaneum and Pompeii. Herculaneum is another small ancient city very close to Herculaneum that was destroyed by a volcano. However, while Herculaneum was immediately destroyed by hot toxic gases. Lava covered the city later. Pompeii got the ash and debris first. They had time to escape, but most people didn't realize Vesuvius's warning.
[Long rant I will make a separate post because it's taking up a lot of space here.]
We had an excellent champagne metaphor to explain all of this. If you weren't there...well, you should have been there.
Pompeii was officially discovered in 1990, but people had known about it beforehand. They saw a bit of the ruins sticking out from under the earth. And so they began to dig.
A funny situation happened when we found a public bath (equivalent to a locker room) that had pictures of sex positions on the walls. A first century aqueduct provided water. The water that needed to be heated was heated by a grate. Pompeii had its own Forum for the market and politics. We also found two theaters. One sat 20,000 people! Theater productions could last two or three days. I honestly have no idea how they did that. Sometimes, I feel like ancient people were more practical but could party harder than we did. It's that whole work hard, play hard thing. But I guess you'd need money to play.
We were told that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius was thought to have happened around August 24. In October and November, people wear heavier clothes. They still put it around that area though, the eruption.
Venus was a big protector for Pompeii.
We walked into the Villa of Mysteries, a very cool title. The villa was actually discovered right next to a previously existing house. Imagine not knowing that was there the entire time you were living there. The house was built before the villa was discovered; we walked though both. The villa was used for the production of wine and had frescos that were definitely up for interpretation, even by experts. We took a crack at it and were very tired, which caused some really hilarious suggestions.
That's it for now! I'm sorry that the pictures are all jumbled together this time, but I'm trying to change up the visual aspects of my blog for some variance...and to see what works the best. :)
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