People moved back to Pompeii after devastating eruption, excavations reveal
Recently unearthed clues suggest that a number of people, including survivors of the disaster as well as transients, returned to live among the ruins after the eruption, based on discoveries made during ongoing excavations of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in southern Italy. But it's impossible to reconstruct a complete picture of exactly how many people returned and in what circumstances based on what has been uncovered so far, said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the archaeological park.
Researchers currently investigating the Insula Meridionalis, a neighborhood in the southernmost part of the city, found pieces of pottery and other evidence dated to after the city's devastation over the course of the past year. The artifacts paint a picture of how, after the eruption, people sought refuge in the upper floors of buildings visible above the ash, Zuchtriegel said.
Pompeii's residents ultimately abandoned the site following another devastating eruption in the fifth century, and the city remained undisturbed until excavations began in 1748.
Zuchtriegel, an archaeologist and coauthor of a new study published on August 6 in the E-Journal of the Excavations of Pompeii, said the city's initial destruction in AD 79 has 'monopolized memory.' Previous traces of Pompeii's reoccupation, he added, have been known by researchers — but also largely ignored.
'In the enthusiasm to reach the levels of 79, with wonderfully preserved frescoes and furnishings still intact, the faint traces of the site's reoccupation were literally removed and often swept away without any documentation,' Zuchtriegel said in a statement.
'Thanks to the new excavations, the picture is now clearer: post-79 Pompeii reemerges, less as a city than as a precarious and gray agglomeration, a kind of encampment, a favela among the still recognizable ruins of the Pompeii of old.'
During excavations of one building in Insula Meriodionalis, archaeologists determined that some of the structure's vaulted ceilings didn't collapse until sometime between the second and fourth centuries, meaning its storerooms were likely partially visible on the surface as people returned to Pompeii.
Artifacts uncovered at the site suggest spaces that had once served as ground floors became cellars and caves where the latest occupants constructed ovens, mills and fireplaces.
Items found in the building's storerooms also indicate that the reoccupation of Pompeii was likely more permanent than transitory, Zuchtriegel said.
The researchers discovered remains of ceramics and cooking vessels, including a ceramic lamp decorated with an early symbol of Christ, all dated to the fifth century. The team also found a small, family-style bread oven from the same time period that was built with reused materials, such as bricks and tiles, within a Roman cistern.
A coin among the Insula Meriodionalis haul that depicts the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, dated to AD 161, suggests people returned to Pompeii just a few decades after the infamous eruption, Zuchtriegel said.
People inhabited the city until the 'Pollena eruption' of Mount Vesuvius in 472, but Pompeii failed to become the thriving, vital port town it was before. A series of additional eruptions also occurred early in the sixth century, according to the study authors.
'These events likely caused serious damage to an already weak economy and may have led to the abandonment of the settlements attested in the Vesuvian area,' the authors wrote in the study.
Researchers estimate the city was once home to about 20,000 people when the AD 79 Vesuvius eruption occurred, and debate about how many died during the disaster is ongoing. So far, archaeologists have uncovered two-thirds of Pompeii and found the remains of about 1,300 people — a number that doesn't include those who perished beyond the center of town.
With nowhere else to go, survivors likely returned to the ruins, living in an ash desert and looking for remnants of their homes and items — and sometimes in the process unearthing remains of victims, like the skeleton of a horse found wedged between two beams in the Insula Meriodionalis.
Amid the pillaging of homes, Roman magistrates were likely sent to the city to prevent an anarchic type of existence, based on ancient literary sources the authors referenced in the study.
Titus, Roman emperor from AD 79 to 81, sent two consuls to the Campanian region where Pompeii is located after the eruption to provide aid, assess the city and reallocate the property of those who had died in the eruption with no surviving heirs, Zuchtriegel said. The emperor also provided funds to help survivors, and one text even suggests he visited Pompeii after the eruption, Zuchtriegel added.
Vegetation also slowly returned to the land, and Pompeii's post-eruption inhabitants dug wells to reach groundwater beneath the ash coating the city, the study authors said. The post-eruption settlers also buried their own, based on evidence of a newborn that was interred at the site during the reoccupation.
'We have to assume that although occupation was not temporary, life within the ruins must have been fairly basic although a latrine had been constructed presumably for those tending to the baking of bread,' Zuchtriegel said. 'Most of the comforts of first century Roman life had been eradicated.'
The study demonstrates that contemporary archaeology is not about hunting for treasure, but reading signs in the sediment and understanding relationships among all the surviving physical evidence, said Daniel Diffendale, postdoctoral researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He was not involved in the new research.
Diffendale noted that scattered evidence for human activity at Pompeii post-eruption existed prior to the new study, but this latest research uncovers a previously unknown level of detail.
'This is more evidence of stable post-eruption habitation,' Diffendale wrote in an email. 'These are people carving out residences from utilitarian spaces, not living in luxurious atrium houses. On the other hand, this could also represent a part of the population that wasn't living in those luxurious houses prior to the eruption either, and whose lives are scarcely visible elsewhere in Pompeii.'
Future excavations could reveal how the people reoccupying Pompeii supported themselves, whether it was through salvaging remains of the city, trying to live off the land agriculturally or creating some other form of commerce, he said.
Dr. Marcello Mogetta, chair of the department of classics, archaeology and religion at the University of Missouri, said the Archaeological Park of Pompeii's staff should be commended for bringing the afterlife of the Roman town into sharper focus through its excavations and exhibitions.
Mogetta was not involved in this research, but he is leading a project that investigates an area near the one discussed in the study. One of the authors of the new study is the officer responsible for the sector of Pompeii that Mogetta is studying, he said.
'This study ultimately highlights the resilience of the inhabitants of the wider Vesuvian region and their active role in the economic recovery of the area over periods that have been largely removed from the site's long-term history,' Mogetta said.
The findings shed light on the 'invisible city' of Pompeii that rose again after AD 79 — one that is just beginning to be investigated, the authors wrote in the report.
'In these cases, we archaeologists feel like psychologists of memory buried in the earth: we bring out the parts removed from history, and this phenomenon should lead us to a broader reflection on the archaeological unconscious, on everything that is repressed or obliterated or remains hidden, in the shadow of other seemingly more important things,' Zuchtriegel said.
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CNN
11 hours ago
- CNN
People moved back to Pompeii after devastating eruption, excavations reveal
The once-thriving Roman city of Pompeii resembles an eerie time capsule, seemingly unoccupied since a catastrophic volcanic eruption in AD 79, with the remains of its inhabitants forever frozen under a blanket of ash. But a closer look may reveal another bleak chapter in the tragedy's aftermath, according to new research. Recently unearthed clues suggest that a number of people, including survivors of the disaster as well as transients, returned to live among the ruins after the eruption, based on discoveries made during ongoing excavations of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in southern Italy. But it's impossible to reconstruct a complete picture of exactly how many people returned and in what circumstances based on what has been uncovered so far, said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the archaeological park. Researchers currently investigating the Insula Meridionalis, a neighborhood in the southernmost part of the city, found pieces of pottery and other evidence dated to after the city's devastation over the course of the past year. The artifacts paint a picture of how, after the eruption, people sought refuge in the upper floors of buildings visible above the ash, Zuchtriegel said. Pompeii's residents ultimately abandoned the site following another devastating eruption in the fifth century, and the city remained undisturbed until excavations began in 1748. Zuchtriegel, an archaeologist and coauthor of a new study published on August 6 in the E-Journal of the Excavations of Pompeii, said the city's initial destruction in AD 79 has 'monopolized memory.' Previous traces of Pompeii's reoccupation, he added, have been known by researchers — but also largely ignored. 'In the enthusiasm to reach the levels of 79, with wonderfully preserved frescoes and furnishings still intact, the faint traces of the site's reoccupation were literally removed and often swept away without any documentation,' Zuchtriegel said in a statement. 'Thanks to the new excavations, the picture is now clearer: post-79 Pompeii reemerges, less as a city than as a precarious and gray agglomeration, a kind of encampment, a favela among the still recognizable ruins of the Pompeii of old.' During excavations of one building in Insula Meriodionalis, archaeologists determined that some of the structure's vaulted ceilings didn't collapse until sometime between the second and fourth centuries, meaning its storerooms were likely partially visible on the surface as people returned to Pompeii. Artifacts uncovered at the site suggest spaces that had once served as ground floors became cellars and caves where the latest occupants constructed ovens, mills and fireplaces. Items found in the building's storerooms also indicate that the reoccupation of Pompeii was likely more permanent than transitory, Zuchtriegel said. The researchers discovered remains of ceramics and cooking vessels, including a ceramic lamp decorated with an early symbol of Christ, all dated to the fifth century. The team also found a small, family-style bread oven from the same time period that was built with reused materials, such as bricks and tiles, within a Roman cistern. A coin among the Insula Meriodionalis haul that depicts the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, dated to AD 161, suggests people returned to Pompeii just a few decades after the infamous eruption, Zuchtriegel said. People inhabited the city until the 'Pollena eruption' of Mount Vesuvius in 472, but Pompeii failed to become the thriving, vital port town it was before. A series of additional eruptions also occurred early in the sixth century, according to the study authors. 'These events likely caused serious damage to an already weak economy and may have led to the abandonment of the settlements attested in the Vesuvian area,' the authors wrote in the study. Researchers estimate the city was once home to about 20,000 people when the AD 79 Vesuvius eruption occurred, and debate about how many died during the disaster is ongoing. So far, archaeologists have uncovered two-thirds of Pompeii and found the remains of about 1,300 people — a number that doesn't include those who perished beyond the center of town. With nowhere else to go, survivors likely returned to the ruins, living in an ash desert and looking for remnants of their homes and items — and sometimes in the process unearthing remains of victims, like the skeleton of a horse found wedged between two beams in the Insula Meriodionalis. Amid the pillaging of homes, Roman magistrates were likely sent to the city to prevent an anarchic type of existence, based on ancient literary sources the authors referenced in the study. Titus, Roman emperor from AD 79 to 81, sent two consuls to the Campanian region where Pompeii is located after the eruption to provide aid, assess the city and reallocate the property of those who had died in the eruption with no surviving heirs, Zuchtriegel said. The emperor also provided funds to help survivors, and one text even suggests he visited Pompeii after the eruption, Zuchtriegel added. Vegetation also slowly returned to the land, and Pompeii's post-eruption inhabitants dug wells to reach groundwater beneath the ash coating the city, the study authors said. The post-eruption settlers also buried their own, based on evidence of a newborn that was interred at the site during the reoccupation. 'We have to assume that although occupation was not temporary, life within the ruins must have been fairly basic although a latrine had been constructed presumably for those tending to the baking of bread,' Zuchtriegel said. 'Most of the comforts of first century Roman life had been eradicated.' The study demonstrates that contemporary archaeology is not about hunting for treasure, but reading signs in the sediment and understanding relationships among all the surviving physical evidence, said Daniel Diffendale, postdoctoral researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He was not involved in the new research. Diffendale noted that scattered evidence for human activity at Pompeii post-eruption existed prior to the new study, but this latest research uncovers a previously unknown level of detail. 'This is more evidence of stable post-eruption habitation,' Diffendale wrote in an email. 'These are people carving out residences from utilitarian spaces, not living in luxurious atrium houses. On the other hand, this could also represent a part of the population that wasn't living in those luxurious houses prior to the eruption either, and whose lives are scarcely visible elsewhere in Pompeii.' Future excavations could reveal how the people reoccupying Pompeii supported themselves, whether it was through salvaging remains of the city, trying to live off the land agriculturally or creating some other form of commerce, he said. Dr. Marcello Mogetta, chair of the department of classics, archaeology and religion at the University of Missouri, said the Archaeological Park of Pompeii's staff should be commended for bringing the afterlife of the Roman town into sharper focus through its excavations and exhibitions. Mogetta was not involved in this research, but he is leading a project that investigates an area near the one discussed in the study. One of the authors of the new study is the officer responsible for the sector of Pompeii that Mogetta is studying, he said. 'This study ultimately highlights the resilience of the inhabitants of the wider Vesuvian region and their active role in the economic recovery of the area over periods that have been largely removed from the site's long-term history,' Mogetta said. The findings shed light on the 'invisible city' of Pompeii that rose again after AD 79 — one that is just beginning to be investigated, the authors wrote in the report. 'In these cases, we archaeologists feel like psychologists of memory buried in the earth: we bring out the parts removed from history, and this phenomenon should lead us to a broader reflection on the archaeological unconscious, on everything that is repressed or obliterated or remains hidden, in the shadow of other seemingly more important things,' Zuchtriegel said. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: S.F. firefighters answer call when alarm sounds. That's why they deserve what they're paid
Regarding 'S.F. firefighter overtime pay is over the top. Why does the city allow this dubious practice?' (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 8): When I was 9 in the early '60s, Mom made the mistake of showing me and my three sisters what Dad did for work at his firehouse in the Mission District. We heard the sirens start, and we followed the noise to a burning building. Mom never took the family to watch Dad work again. The nightmare of flames and the immediacy of death their father confronted was not something she wanted her children to know about. One Thanksgiving, long after Dad had retired, a fire broke out near our home in the Excelsior. Dad was just about to carve the turkey. As the sirens approached, he went out to observe. The firefighters responding were shorthanded, and all were busy. Dad noticed a hose wasn't connected to a hydrant. He stretched it and linked it to the hydrant. Dad got a big smile and thanks from the firefighter who noticed. I was never prouder of my dad. Dad died in 1983 from cancer due to inhalation of smoke on the job. Letter writer Beth Brown should realize that the pay for San Francisco firefighters she decries as an 'insatiable appetite' and 'greed' is well-deserved. These heroic men and women work shifts of 24 hours on, 48 off, with death tugging at their elbows each time the alarm sounds. John R. Wallace, Mill Valley Hold PG&E accountable The primary reason is the lack of any accountability in the rate-making process from the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the investor-owned utilities, like PG&E. The state's utilities have done everything they can to increase their profits by building capital-intensive, and in many cases, unnecessary transmission and distribution infrastructure. At the same time, the utilities have used their political muscle to suppress the use of grid-enhancing technologies, methods to expand the capacity of the grid with much less capital-intensive strategies. Because utilities get a guaranteed rate of return on capital deployed, they have no incentive to use less expensive methods, so ratepayers end up taking it on the chin. And despite what the story said, we can do something about it by supporting consumer advocacy groups like The Utility Reform Network and the Solar Rights Alliance. Rick Brown, Petaluma Dems have to fight Regarding 'California can never win a race to the bottom with Trump on redistricting ' (Open Forum, Aug. 10): Taking the high road, as Michelle Obama once stated, has always been a losing political strategy for Democrats. Stating that 'turning the other cheek would be real gangster' shows that it's time for Joe Matthews to retire from political writing. He's not reading the political landscape. Republicans, conservatives and corporations have been beating the Democrats and progressives over the head with name-calling and falsehoods for decades. The right wing is winning at the ballot box and in the courts. Look who controls the U.S. Capitol and most statehouses. It's time Democrats fight back, even if it requires getting dirty. Michael Santos, Antelope, Sacramento County Spread the music
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
What if L.A.'s so-called flaws were underappreciated assets rather than liabilities?
In the wake of January's horrific fires, detractors of Los Angeles — an urban reality often seen as a toxic mixture of unsustainable resource planning and structurally poor governance systems — are having a field day. Their criticism is not new: For most of the 20th century — and certainly for the last five decades or so — Los Angeles has been seen by many urbanists as less city and more cautionary tale — a smoggy expanse of subdivisions and spaghetti junctions, where ambition came with a two-hour commute. Planners shuddered, while architects looked away, even as they accepted handsome commissions to build some of L.A.'s — if not the world's — most iconic buildings. In 1961, Jane Jacobs, the famed urban theorist and community activist, referred to 'the ballet of the good city sidewalk' in her landmark 1961 book 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities.' If Manhattan was her 'ballet of the sidewalk,' L.A. was a suburban parking lot with delusions of grandeur. 'Los Angeles is a city of pleasure and peril; we've always known this,' Zeina Koreitem, founding partner of Downtown L.A. architecture studio Milliøns, said following the fires. 'We consume our environment instead of living with it.' And yet, like so many Hollywood plot twists, maybe we misunderstood the protagonist. What if L.A.'s so-called flaws — its low density, car culture and decentralized sprawl — weren't liabilities in a changing world, but underappreciated assets? Not because they were the right urban solutions all along, but because the systems beneath them are shifting? Urban form has always followed transportation infrastructure. Roman roads influenced the creation of grid-based military cities. Railways shaped satellite towns. Subways gave rise to vertical density. Today, the emergence of autonomous mobility solutions like robot taxis as well as distributed energy — decentralized, small-scale energy generation located near where energy is actually consumed — is redrawing those relationships once again — and the L.A. model just may be a big beneficiary in the long run. Dismissed as the nemesis of sustainable urbanism, L.A. can, in fact, be well-positioned for the next chapter. Technologies like rooftop photovoltaics, vehicle-to-grid systems and AI-optimized resource flows do not depend on compactness. They benefit from space, sunlight and flexibility — qualities that Los Angeles has in abundance across its 1,600 square miles of urbanized area. That vast, polycentric mass — long derided by urban experts residing in denser cities — can also be an asset in the years ahead as autonomous mobility becomes ubiquitous. Elastic, demand-driven autonomous services — which will inevitably also extend to Los Angeles airspace — can and will complement an increasingly built-out Metro light rail system and increased bus rapid transit routes, helping open up economic opportunities to those in once disadvantaged, isolated neighborhoods. Instead of forcing the city into a European mold, perhaps the question is how the city's existing DNA might evolve. Could its low-rise form become a testing ground for neighborhood-scale energy networks? Could it become a solar-powered metropolis built on microgrids, where each district produces and manages its own resources? There is already a shift underway. L.A.'s wide boulevards and streets are being reimagined for a new mix of mobility modes: e-bikes, delivery bots, shared shuttles, autonomous vehicles. A city that was once an ode to the freeway is fast becoming a globally recognized source of innovations in multimodal transport. This is what CoMotion LA has been looking at for the last eight years: bringing together public and private stakeholders to imagine a city of seamlessly connecting mobility options. Young Angelenos increasingly prioritize neighborhoods where walking, biking and public transit are viable. Following a COVID-induced hiatus, downtown's renaissance, with banks converted into lofts and vibrant public spaces, is showing — once again — a new appetite for urban living. Los Angeles is even emerging as a global pioneer in rethinking the curb — often treated as an afterthought — looking at ways those stretches of sidewalk can serve new functions: a charging node, a logistics port, a civic gathering point. Meanwhile, the scattershot green spaces across Los Angeles offer another opportunity. Rather than a singular large park like New York's Central Park or Boston Common, the city could develop an ecological mesh, a 'sponge city' capable of managing stormwater and heat while fostering public life. Because sustainability is not only about emissions or energy. It is also means access, health and shared space. This isn't about longing for midcentury Los Angeles, or about replicating Copenhagen. It's about testing new possibilities — much like what we're exploring this year at the Biennale Architettura in Venice. There, participants from diverse disciplines are investigating how we can adapt to a changing planet. We begin with the understanding that climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is a present condition. Our response must be adaptive, experimental and iterative: a continuous process of design evolution, shaped by trial and error, much like nature itself. But the United States and the world do not need a single model of urban sustainability — they need many. New York might go vertical and social. Barcelona is building out superblocks for pedestrians. Rotterdam is going resilient and water-wise. And Los Angeles? It could — and we believe, it will — become a solar-powered, biodiversity-rich metropolis that helps us rethink what urban sustainability really means. The sustainable city of the future should not look the same everywhere. It should build on the best of what each place already is and push that to its most imaginative conclusion. 'No city has ever been produced by such an extraordinary mixture of geography, climate, economics, demography, mechanics and culture,' said Reyner Banham, the British architectural historian who wrote about Los Angeles a half-century ago. 'Nor is it likely that an even remotely similar mixture will ever occur again.' Los Angeles may have been the warning of the 20th century. But it could become the blueprint of the 21st. John Rossant is chief executive of CoMotion and international impresario of the multimodal transportation world. Carlo Ratti is the director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT and the curator of the Biennale Architettura 2025.
