Primary Sources
- Pompeii Art & Architecture galleryThe art & architecture in the excavations of old Pompeii show what life was like for its citizens.
General Information
- The City of Pompeii [History4Kids] From History for Kids.
- Ancient Rome: The City of Pompeii [Ducksters] From Ducksters site.
- Pompeii: Portents of Disaster [BBC] BBC Ancient History site.
- Images of Pompeii: City in Ash [Live Science] Images of the ruins of Pompeii. In A.D. 79, a massive eruption by Mount Vesuvius buried the town in ash, freezing it in time.
- Pompeii [Britannica] The ancient city of Pompeii is located in the Italian countryside of Campania, about 14 miles (23 kilometers) southeast of Naples, at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius.
- Mount Vesuvius [Britannica] Mount Vesuvius is an active volcano in southern Italy.
- Herculaneum [Britannica] The ancient city of Herculaneum lay in the countryside of Campania, Italy, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) southeast of Naples, at the western base of Mount Vesuvius.
Books from the Library . . .
Pompeii by
An ancient city unearthed... In the 1730s, Charles of Bourbon, king of the area around present-day Naples, Italy, learned that local peasants were finding marble and other ancient objects when they dug their wells. He sent army colonel Rocque Joachin Alcubierre and later Karl Jacob Weber to explore the area. Working in darkness with only torches to light their way, Alcubierre's and Weber's crews of workers tunneled through hardened mud. The crews found a marble statue on the very first day. Soon they discovered an ancient Roman theater filled with marble and bronze statues. Later, the crew moved south, where digging was above ground, and they began to uncover the ancient city of Pompeii. This once-vibrant Roman city had been completely buried in lava and ash when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. By unearthing this ancient city, Weber spurred interested not only in artifacts, but in how the ancient people lived. By the early nineteenth century, Pompeii was a busy tourist attraction and the once-buried city lived again.
Call Number: eBOOK - EBSCOPublication Date: 2008
Pompeii by
This captivating title examines the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in 79 A.D. and what the remnants of this buried city can teach us today.
Call Number: eBOOK - EBSCOPublication Date: 2012
Daily Life in the Roman City by
Despite the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire lived an agricultural existence and thus resided outside of urban centers, there is no denying the fact that the core of Roman civilization--its essential culture and politics--was based in cities. Even at the furthest boundaries of the Empire, Roman cities shared a remarkable and consistent similarity in terms of architecture, art, infrastructure, and organization which was modeled after the greatest city of all, Rome itself. In Gregory Aldrete's exhaustive account, readers will have the opportunity to peer into the inner workings of daily life in ancient Rome, to witness the full range of glory, cruelty, sophistication, and deprivation that characterized Roman cities, and will perhaps even gain new insight into the nature and history of urban existence in America today. Included are accounts of Rome's history, infrastructure, government, and inhabitants, as well as chapters on life and death, the dangers and pleasures of urban living, entertainment, religion, the emperors, and the economy. Additional sections explore two other important Roman cities: Ostia, an industrial port town, and Pompeii, the doomed playground of the rich.
Call Number: eBOOK - DestinyISBN: 9780313017971Publication Date: 2004
Ghosts of Vesuvius by Call Number: 937.7 PELPublication Date: 2005
Ancient Pompeii by Call Number: 937 NARPublication Date: 2004
Ancient Cities by
Ancient Cities surveys the cities of the Ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman worlds from the perspectives of archaeology and architectural history, bringing to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on evidence recovered from archaeological excavations. Urban form is the focus: the physical appearance and overall plans of the cities, their architecture and natural topography, and the cultural and historical contexts in which they flourished. Attention is also paid to non-urban features such as religious sanctuaries and burial grounds, places and institutions that were a familiar part of the city dweller's experience. Objects or artifacts that represented the essential furnishings of everyday life are discussed, such as pottery, sculpture, wall paintings, mosaics and coins.
Call Number: eBOOK - DestinyPublication Date: 2011
What happened to Pompeii and Herculaneum?
Mount Vesuvius, a volcano near the Bay of Naples in Italy, is hundreds of thousands of years old and has erupted more than 50 times. Its most famous eruption took place in the year 79 A.D., when the volcano buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii under a thick carpet of volcanic ash. The dust “poured across the land” like a flood, one witness wrote, and shrouded the city in “a darkness…like the black of closed and unlighted rooms.” Two thousand people died, and the city was abandoned for almost as many years.
When a group of explorers rediscovered the site in 1748, they were surprised to find that, underneath a thick layer of dust and debris, Pompeii was mostly intact. The buildings, artifacts and skeletons left behind in the buried city have taught us a great deal about everyday life in the ancient world.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/topics/pompeii
When did it happen? New evidence . . .
SOURCE: ABC News (2018) Broadcast on Wednesday 17th October 2018, Rated G, Duration 1:36 mins.
Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered an inscription they say may show that the history books have been wrong for centuries. Historians have long believed that Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 AD, destroying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii, based on letters by Pliny, the Younger.
But now, an inscription has been uncovered dated to mid-October - almost two months later. The inscription discovered in the new excavations is nothing more than a scrawl in charcoal, likely made by a worker renovating a home. But it is dated to 16 days before the "calends" of November in the old Roman calendar style - which is 17 October in our modern dating method.
"Since it was done in fragile and evanescent charcoal, which could not have been able to last long, it is highly probable that it can be dated to the October of AD 79," the archaeology team said in a statement. They believe the most likely date for the eruption was, in fact, 24 October. There has long been some speculation that the eruption happened later than August, particularly centred around evidence of autumnal fruits and heating braziers discovered in the ruins.
Take a Video Tour
- Video tour of the ruined Forum BathsInteractive: Select each number in the floor plan to view a video tour by a expert archeologists from the 'Pompeii Forum Project.' Use the links on the floor plan of the Baths to move from the Entrance to the Apodyterium (a-poe-die-tare-ee-um) or dressing room, the Palaestra (pal-eye-stra) or exercise courtyard, the Calidarium (cal-i-dar-ee-um) or hot room, the Tepidarium (teh-pi-dar-ee-um) or warm room, and the Frigidarium (fri-geh-dar-ee-um) or cold room.
- AD 79 Destruction and Rediscovery: Street View of Pompeii.An interactive site showing the principal streets, shops and businesses of Pompeii. [From Google Sites]
Oxford Textbook: Chapter 10 - Earthquakes and Volcanoes
SOURCE: Conti, L., Easton, M., & Saldais, M. (2022). Oxford Big Ideas Humanities and Social Sciences 7. Oxford.
WASLA Teacher Librarian of the Year- 2017: Jo-Anne Urquhart
- 2016: Lise Legg
WASLA Library Officer of the Year- 2012: Karen Notley