Information about the ancient city of Pompeii

Ancient Roman cities. Located near Naples in southern Italy. Built in the 6th century BC, it was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Pompeii was a small town at that time, but because it was buried by volcanic ash, the houses on the street were well preserved. Archaeological excavations continued from 1748, providing important information for understanding the social life, culture and art of ancient Rome.

The ancient city is slightly rectangular, surrounded by walls and gates. The streets in the city are criss-crossed, and the block layout is like a chessboard. Important buildings surround the municipal square, including the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Apollo, the Great Hall, the bathing place and the shopping center. And the necessary facilities of Roman municipal buildings such as theater, gymnasium, Colosseum and aqueduct. There are many workshops and shops, which are set up in the block according to the industry. Together with a large number of residential buildings, they constitute an important object for studying Roman civil architecture. Generally, wealthy families have gardens. The main house is surrounded by a central courtyard with a hall and a bedroom. There are classical colonnades and marble statues in the garden. There are many murals in halls and corridors (see Pompeii murals), which are important remains of classical murals. These murals are of high level and have a great influence on European neoclassical art after being discovered.

Through southern Italy, I finally stood on the abandoned ancient city of Pompeii and looked around, but I was speechless for a moment. I marvel at the creativity of ancient Roman ancestors, and I also lament that the Italian government spared no effort to protect this thousand-year-old cultural heritage.

The thousand-year-old city disappeared overnight.

As early as the 8th century BC, Pompeii, a small fishing village relying on the natural harbor of the Mediterranean, gradually developed into a city. Hundreds of years later, its merchants gathered and became the second largest city after Italy and ancient Rome. It is located 300 kilometers north of Rome, west of the famous Sicily and south of Greece and North Africa. Pompeii's magical temple of the sun, huge Colosseum, grand theater, effective wizard hall, novel steam bath, numerous shops and entertainment places have attracted many wealthy businessmen and nobles from countries around the Mediterranean. In addition, the strange magma soil, volcanic rocks and geothermal hot springs brought by the repeated eruption of Navi Suwei volcano in the north of the city for hundreds of millions of years have made Pompeii famous far and wide: that large fertile magma soil with a slightly burnt taste has made Pompeii's grapes extremely sweet and well-brewed, making it the top grade of nobles everywhere; The round-the-clock geothermal hot springs not only attract people to take a bath here, but also attract many nobles and wealthy businessmen to build gardens and villas in Pompeii, and gradually develop entertainment places, making Pompeii a prosperous place. Especially the bright red volcanic rocks in black are possessed by everyone because of their magical effects of relieving pain, calming the nerves and stopping bleeding. However, who would have expected that this volcano, which has been sleeping beside Pompeii for thousands of years, would suddenly wake up one day and swallow the famous Pompeii with an open mouth!

It was the first Sunday in August 79 AD. The wife of a big wine merchant in ancient Rome was praying, when suddenly she had a severe chest pain and hemoptysis, and her daughter Sophia began to cry. Just then, Carlo, the unmarried son-in-law, heard the news and volunteered to ride a fast horse to Pompeii's hometown to get the hemostatic stone. Rome is more than 300 kilometers from Pompeii. The wooded mountain roads are rugged and robbers are everywhere, which makes the enthusiastic Sophia choose a dilemma. Carol understands the concerns of his fiancee Sophia. He said: "I have been riding for more than ten years. I am a strong soldier." I'm good at this. I'll be back in two days and two nights! " Before Sophia obeyed, Carlo in uniform left with several assistants!

Mom has been hemoptysis for two days. Sophia hasn't slept for two nights and has been thinking about Carlo's return trip. The next day, she has been leaning against the door, expecting the familiar sound of hooves in her ears, but I don't know why her fiance didn't appear in front of her until the fourth, fifth and sixth day. Only after Christmas did she vaguely hear a terrible news: one night in August, Mount Vesuvius opened its crater, spewing bloody magma, and Fiona Fang suddenly became a sea of fire for hundreds of miles! ……

The ancient city of Pompeii disappeared overnight! It took a long time to cool down after the volcano erupted. After the catastrophe, herders found that hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest farms, grasslands and the prosperity of Pompeii, which was very familiar in the past, were all gone, leaving only a long scorched earth area like a river left by the cooling of volcanic magma, and the surrounding area was silent, which made people worry about their lives!

Calculate the time of the disaster, which is the night when Carlo arrived in Pompeii to get the hemostatic stone. My fiance never came back. Since then, the folk song "Broken-hearted Sophia" has sounded in every corner of the Mediterranean. ...

Dig out the miracle of the times with a hoe

With the passage of time, the ancient city of Pompeii gradually faded out of the world. Later, immigrants from Rome to the south and from Greece and Sicily to the north found that the foot of the volcano was covered with dense forests. People cut down trees and exposed black land, so they developed and planted grapes on them.

In the spring of 1748, a farmer named Andre was digging deep in his vineyard. He raised his hoe with a bang, as if he had found a boulder, but he couldn't pull it out no matter how hard he tried. He quickly called his brother and sister-in-law for help. They dug up dirt and stones and found that the hoe had penetrated a metal cabinet. So too many cooks dug out the cabinets and opened them. It turned out to be a lot of melted and semi-melted gold and silver jewelry and ancient coins. When the news spread, the farmers who planted grapes in this land suddenly remembered the legend of Pompeii's disappearance handed down from generation to generation, so treasure thieves swarmed, and later attracted a group of historians and archaeologists to come here for archaeology. Later, at the suggestion of experts, the Italian government began to organize scientists to excavate the ancient city of Pompeii in an orderly manner. After seven or eight generations of experts 100 years of continuous work and thousands of staff's hard maintenance, this thrilling scene of Pompeii finally reappeared in front of the world. Vanya, a historian who participated in the excavation of Pompeii, said, "What a shocking sight! Many people died in their sleep, while others died at home. They held their arms high and gasped. Many people's bread is still in the oven, and the dog is still tied to the chain by the door; The slaves still carry ropes; There are books made of papyrus on the shelves of the library, and election slogans are posted on the walls, with words of love painted on them ... "These scenes fully show how tens of thousands of creatures in the ancient city were suddenly torn alive! I felt a panic when I saw the bodies of men, women and children in various forms (mostly fossils) displayed in the sealed glass of Pompeii. Facing the eternal universe and nature, people should first respect nature, protect ecology and compete with nature. How small and powerless people are!

The remains of this ancient city are amazing.

Today, the ancient city of Pompeii has been designated as a world cultural and natural heritage by UNESCO. Tourists call it "Natural History Museum", which attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world every day. I shuttled through the streets of the ruins of the ancient city, entering and leaving the half-destroyed houses, villas, trade markets, shops, bakeries, hot springs, warehouses, theaters, Colosseum and sports fields, feeling no ups and downs and imagining things.

Although only one third of the ancient city of Pompeii is open to tourists, the rest is still buried underground. But I saw dozens of streets and lanes paved with white and cyan boulders from 1.8 square kilometers of land. The streets are neat and square, ranging from two meters to four or five meters wide, just like Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty. I found that every sidewalk here is ten or twenty centimeters higher than the horse path. A closer look shows that the ancient Roman carriages were very developed, leaving deep ruts in the middle of the road and being worn out by an inch or two. It seems that at that time, the big carriages of warriors and nobles always galloped in the middle of the road, while slaves and humble townspeople with bowed heads and eyebrows could only walk beside them. At all intersections, I didn't expect that, like today's zebra crossing, every intersection was set with a raised "parting stone" about 30 cm high. When the galloping carriage saw the "parting stone" near the intersection, it naturally slowed down, and the vehicle could only slowly pass through the gap of the boulder. So it suddenly occurred to me that the zebra crossing on our road today was invented by the ancient Romans, right? !

At many street corners and intersections, I also saw large stone troughs engraved with relief. The reliefs on the stone trough, or gods, animal heads or fish mouths, are all connected with bronze pipes at the back, and there are rotating faucets. As long as it rotates, there will be gurgling mountain springs flowing out for pedestrians to drink or wash. At present, many stations, docks, airports, parks, sports fields and streets in developed countries also have tap water, which can be directly drunk. At this time, I was thinking: was this setting in many big cities inspired by ancient Pompeii more than 2,000 years ago?

In Pompeii, in addition to all kinds of murals and exquisite mosaics left by houses, shops and villas, there are also all kinds of pottery and glassware with strange shapes, which make people intoxicated and imaginative. What surprises me even more is that the 5,000-seat amphitheater, the 3,000-seat Colosseum and the 40,000-seat marble stadium make me revere: the humanistic quality and social development vision of the ancient Romans are today after 2000 years.