Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6m of volcanic ash and pumice in Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offered a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried. The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or perhaps it was settled by a family group.
About Pompeii in brief
Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6m of volcanic ash and pumice in Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offered a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried. It was a wealthy town, enjoying many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and works of art. Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2. 5 million visitors annually. After many excavations prior to 1960 that had uncovered most of the city but left it in decay, further major excavations were banned and instead they were limited to targeted, prioritised areas. In 2018, these led to new discoveries in some previously unexplored areas of Pompeii, including the Triangular Forum, the Doric Temple and the Tufa city wall. The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or perhaps it was settled by a family group. The first stable settlements on the site date back to the 8th century BC when the Oscans, a people of central Italy, founded five villages in the area. With the arrival of the Greeks in Campania from around 740 BC, Pompeii entered the orbit of the Hellenic people.
The city began to flourish and maritime trade started with the construction of a small port near the mouth of the Sarno River. In 524 BC, the Etruscan League of Etruscans arrived and settled the area, including Pompeii. Like the Greeks, the Greeks did not conquer the city militarily but simply controlled it and Pompeii enjoyed a sort of autonomy. In the early 6th centuryBC, the settlement merged into a single community centred on the important crossroad between Cumae, Nola, and Stabiae and was surrounded by a tufaCity wall. In 6th-century BC, inscriptions show the presence of a nectrusus and a neccanus in the 6th and 7th centuries BC, including a finding in the River River of a man called S. Truscus, who is believed to have lived in Pompeii until the 7th century BC. The site is now in the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy and is a popular tourist attraction. It is located 700 metres from the coastline, though today it is 700 metres away. Although best known for its Roman remains visible today dating from AD 79, it was built upon a substantial city dating from much earlier times. The city bordered the coastline and served early Greek and Phoenician sailors as a safe haven and port which was developed further by the Romans. The most important building of this period is the D Greek Temple, built away from the centre.
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This page is based on the article Pompeii published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 26, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
