- 15 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Mount Vesuvius looms over the ruined city of Pompeii, an ever-present reminder of the
00:17disaster of AD 79. Every year, Neapolitans still pray to their patron saint to keep
00:29them safe from the volcano. But 2,000 years ago, it was a catastrophe nobody saw coming.
00:41For the people here, they didn't know, probably, that Vesuvius was a volcano.
00:48They didn't know the danger. They basically didn't know what was getting at them.
00:59For 18 hours, Vesuvius rained pumice and ash onto the city.
01:11Decision-making during the eruption for the people of Pompeii was incredibly challenging.
01:17There were still earthquakes. People had been disorientated. The mushroom of ash would have
01:22been spreading across the sky towards the city, starting to turn day into night.
01:29Several hours of ashfall would have made these streets unrecognisable to the residents of Pompeii.
01:36Ash would have built up high above the road, up along the walls,
01:41flanking this main thoroughfare out of the city.
01:46Hundreds perished as roofs and buildings collapsed.
01:50But for any survivors, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope.
01:56At one o'clock in the morning, there was a pause in the eruption. That ash stopped falling from the sky.
02:04At that moment, people maybe thought that the eruption had finished and that it was safe to stay.
02:11But something worse was about to happen. As the volcano's eruptive behaviour started to change,
02:17another new deadly hazard started to arrive into the city of Pompeii.
02:28Pompeii had entered its final hours.
02:31The
03:00dig in a generation is reaching its climax. For over a year, an all-Italian team of archaeologists
03:10have been unearthing an entire city block known as Insula 10. In a complex of buildings
03:19beneath the pumice, a large brick-built oven led to the discovery of a commercial bakery.
03:29In a small room close by, the team found the crushed remains of two women and a child,
03:37probably enslaved workers. Next door, an atrium or reception area was under renovation at
03:46the time of the eruption.
03:55Here the team discovered expensive marble furniture and brightly coloured frescoes, including
04:01one resembling a pizza. With a third building housing a high-end laundry, the team believed
04:11the same man owned the entire complex. And they found his initials, ARV, on a bakery
04:19millstone.
04:20Now the excavation is expanding to a new area behind the bakery site. A grand building
04:27with spacious rooms. As the first wall paintings are revealed, it's clear this is an opulent house
04:35once owned by a very rich person. Could this be the home of the mysterious ARV?
04:42It's always fascinating seeing new things, because it's like slowly emerging pieces of a great
04:49puzzle. And we want to understand how these people lived, how the house was organised. It's
04:55really like a story coming to light.
05:12Underneath a large staircase, the team have found something unique. The first of its kind
05:27found in Pompeii.
05:28Good morning, guys. How are you?
05:33Good morning, Gennaro. Come a little bit. Come a little bit.
05:36What's going on?
05:37There's a new thing.
05:38Look a little bit.
05:41Look a little bit.
05:46Oh, what's going on?
05:48What's going on?
05:50I think some kind.
05:51Oh, what's going on?
05:52Is it going on?
05:53I'm going in there.
05:54I'm going in there.
05:55Somewhere among the people.
05:58Diario.
05:59Of the Galassia.
06:00Are you going on?
06:01Oh, that's what's going on?
06:03Are you going on with the one-man?
06:04Yes.
06:05I'm going on with the It's going on my face.
06:06I'm going on my chest.
06:07In the one-man shape of the Galassian and I'm going on my face.
06:09The Galassian.
06:10All right.
06:11I'm going on the other side of the Galassian.
06:12Yes.
06:13For the Galassian.
06:14Am I going on for the whole world?
06:15At the same time.
06:16Why what's going on?
06:17Gladiators were celebrated icons of the Roman world
06:45worshipped as superstar athletes.
06:51Archaeologists have found their images across Pompeii,
06:57from colourful tomb paintings to graffiti scratched into walls.
07:06But what makes these images so special is that the artist drew them in charcoal.
07:15It is very delicate, very durable, easily painted.
07:21This means that those who have designed it
07:26have made it in moments, in moments, the day before,
07:30that the eruption covered everything.
07:34What inspired the mystery artist to draw these images
07:37just before the eruption?
07:40A stone's throw from the dig is Pompeii's amphitheatre.
07:46In AD 79, it regularly held gladiatorial contests.
07:52Are the images a record of a fight that took place here?
07:56We may not be in Rome, but we're still in an incredible amphitheatre.
08:07And even though it isn't the Colosseum,
08:09the great thing about Pompeii is that it's smaller, it's more intimate.
08:13So wherever you are, even at the cheap seats,
08:15you're getting a fantastic view of the actual games themselves.
08:27The amphitheatre is the great equaliser.
08:29It doesn't matter what your position is in society.
08:31Here, we're all one.
08:33Everybody's here, but their attention is on the infamous.
08:37Here, it is the lowest of the low, the gladiators,
08:39that commands the attention of every echelon of Roman society.
08:47And right here was our artist.
08:52You can imagine, he's walked up the same steps we have.
08:54Come out here, probably with some friends.
08:56As you sat down, the music's building up with the roar of the crowd.
09:00You really would have felt it in your bones.
09:06This is just etched into this artist's memory.
09:11These are incredible.
09:13Snapshots of a moment lost in time until recently.
09:16Without these, we would never have known of this incredible match that took place.
09:21So you've got two very popular types of gladiators.
09:24You've got the Thracian.
09:25He's kind of like the middleweight.
09:27He has a brimmed helmet with a nice crest and feathers.
09:30We can see he's got a smaller shield.
09:32And he's got his signature weapon, the Sica.
09:36It's this little sword here, this little line.
09:38Simple line, but it gives away exactly who it is.
09:40One of the most dangerous weapons in the arena.
09:43He's fighting against the Murmillo, the tank.
09:46The armored tank of the gladiators.
09:48He's got the Scutum.
09:49You can see big shield.
09:51Now, the Scutum is really a weapon of the Roman army.
09:55And this is the opening moment.
09:58It's the moment that they've squared off in front of each other.
10:02They're going to start sparring.
10:03They're going to start sighting each other up.
10:04But then the second part, what we have is the culmination.
10:10The end knockout where he's hit the shield out of the opponent gladiator's hand.
10:13The clash of the swords.
10:14The winning moment.
10:15The triumph of one gladiator.
10:16And on the other side, the disappointment of the other.
10:17I would say that this is his gladiator.
10:18This is his man.
10:19And he, at the end of the day, has gone home.
10:20And he's just wanted to remember it.
10:21And there he is.
10:22Just with a little piece of charcoal immortalizing this moment.
10:23Just with a little piece of charcoal.
10:24Immortalizing this moment.
10:25The crazy thing is that this is his gladiator's hand.
10:26The clash of the swords.
10:27The winning moment.
10:28The triumph of one gladiator.
10:29And on the other side, the disappointment of the other.
10:32I would say that this is his gladiator.
10:39This is his man.
10:40And he, at the end of the day, has gone home.
10:43And he's just wanted to remember it.
10:45And there he is.
10:46Just with a little piece of charcoal.
10:47Immortalizing this moment.
10:53The crazy thing is that, unbeknownst to the sardis and the spectators.
10:58Their doom is behind them.
11:01The Vesuvius is secretly looming.
11:04And it's going to end everything.
11:06And it's going to entomb them.
11:07And it's going to survive this moment for us to find 2,000 years later.
11:31in your vision.
11:32But they're so confused.
11:33But it's not that it's not that they're missing.
11:34And it's not that it's not that the ignite was full.
11:35A lot of civilians are going to escape.
11:36The
11:51creating deadly burning avalanches that swept down the mountainside.
11:58Known as pyroclastic flows, they are unstoppable and unsurvivable.
12:07Their temperature can be a few hundreds of degrees Celsius,
12:11and they can move several tens of miles per hour, much faster than we'd be able to run.
12:17It was the horrendous way to die.
12:21Not only is the flow hot, the gases within it are enough to poison you from the inside.
12:27They suffocate you, and they damage your lungs and all of your respiratory system.
12:33Breathing that air in was impossible.
12:38But fortunately for the residents of Pompeii, it didn't enter their city.
12:42It actually went along the coastline into the settlement of Herculaneum.
12:46The residents of Pompeii were spared that first onslaught.
12:51At the dig, the team have discovered an unusually large relief.
13:05It is an extraordinary and rare find, a three-dimensional snake,
13:13found in one of the last unexcavated rooms within the bakery complex.
13:20Snakes were the guardian deities of the home,
13:24often decorating shrines and altars.
13:26And this one is not alone.
13:30Give me a hand.
13:31Give me a hand.
13:32Yes.
13:33Yes.
13:33Yes.
13:34Yes.
13:34The nest?
13:35Yes.
13:36Yes.
13:36Yes.
13:37Yes.
13:37Yes.
13:38Yes.
13:39Yes.
13:39Yes.
13:40Marco, give me a hand.
13:41Let's take a moment.
13:43Yes.
13:44Yes.
13:45Yes.
13:46Yes.
13:47Yes.
13:48Yes.
13:49Yes.
13:50Yes.
13:51Yes.
13:52Yes.
14:18Yes.
14:20Yes.
14:21To find a shrine with an altar would prove this room was used to make offerings to the gods
14:28and would have been one of the most important places in the house.
14:37The private home, the house, the family, is a special space in religious terms.
14:45For the ancient mentality, everything was somehow sacred.
14:54You had gods living on the mountains, nymphs living in the waters, in the rivers, in trees.
15:01The planets were named after divinities, Venus and so forth.
15:07And the snake somehow connects the underground with humans.
15:16And so it brings abundance, wealth. It stands for the good spirit.
15:21And they are often depicted on the altar.
15:26My father had a piece of wood in the mountains.
15:33It was like a serpent with a big head.
15:36It was short.
15:37He said it was an ancient serpent.
15:40And they knew it was like an augur.
15:43Yes, it was an augur.
15:44And they never touched it.
15:46Because if he was born...
15:48The serpent is a symbol of prosperity and wealth.
15:52So it doesn't stop.
15:56The discovery of two snakes in relief is another first for Pompeii.
16:01And just below, the team uncover what they were looking for.
16:06A shrine and small altar with a third painted snake.
16:13Dr Valentino Gasparini is an expert in Roman religion.
16:18He's keen to understand why the house owner sought so much divine protection.
16:25Allora...
16:29Che spettacolo!
16:31Non esiste niente di questo tipo?
16:33No, per ora è l'unico conservato.
16:36Quindi un solo serpente Genius Loki, con tutte le decorazioni classiche.
16:42Con la loro Crestina rossa, la loro barbetta rossa.
16:45E poi questo è bellissimo!
16:47L'altare dove veniva fatto il sacrificio è...
16:50La sua rappresentazione immediatamente stopana.
16:52Diretta, certo.
16:54to look at a search of a divine protection so imponential,
17:02because there are no things like this type in Pompeii,
17:06is like to say, a 90-year-old?
17:13They need many protections,
17:15like the house, the panificia, the lamp.
17:18Yes, yes, yes.
17:19In this case, I don't understand what it is.
17:25I don't think it's meat,
17:26but maybe I'll throw some fruit from a patera.
17:30I don't think you've had the chance to find botanical remains.
17:40Previously, most of the offerings found in shrines in Pompeii
17:44contained just vegetable matter.
17:47But in the lab, the team have discovered something unusual.
17:53Here you can see the remnants recovered from the scavo of the Arario.
17:58So we have this dry fruit,
18:02so the noces, for example.
18:04We have brattes, pinoles,
18:09fiches,
18:10and the leaves,
18:11and then there was a great presence of olive leaves,
18:16and the leaves of the olive oil,
18:21and therefore it was used as combustible.
18:24In fact, I have a change.
18:25I have always the pusho of the fish,
18:27but then there are changes,
18:30such as the vegetables of the fish,
18:31big fish,
18:32and then there are some fragments of mammalian species.
18:36This should be the first example of faunistic remains associated with vegetal remains.
18:45Yes, they are obviously new in this case, like the fish.
18:52Who has this offer to the Arario?
18:58It's difficult to say. They could have been the owners of the house, maybe as the last offer.
19:08It's not been found in other Arari Pompeians.
19:17Was this shrine offering a never-before-seen mixture of fruit, meat and fish?
19:22A last desperate attempt to appease the gods amidst the eruption?
19:28The fear, the need for protection, the need for protection
19:33from something that for them could not be completely understood.
19:38If you think about it, we are the first to see what was placed in this Arario.
19:45It's extremely emotional.
19:49Rituals and offerings weren't the only way the ancient Romans sought protection.
20:04Amulets and lucky charms were worn to guard against misfortune.
20:10This one, left behind by a fleeing Pompeian, has multiple deities on a single talisman.
20:17You can see here there is a serpent coiling around this tree.
20:23There is a bird, probably an eagle.
20:26There is a dog.
20:28There is also this ring, which gives the possibility, while escaping from Pompeii, to bring with them
20:36some divine, over-powerful in this case, figurines.
20:42Of course, we cannot not mention one bodily member which is particularly effective in protection.
20:56The male genitalia, the male genitalia, the phallus in whatever size, shape.
21:05We have bronze phalluses, bone phalluses, golden phalluses, winged phalluses.
21:11And the basic function of these small objects was quite clear.
21:16Provide protection for the own life of the user of this object against the bad spirits.
21:29And what we have here is a necklace, which has been found here in Pompeii with a set of eight pieces.
21:38And, in this case, it's quite interesting to see how every single bone piece of this necklace is shaped as a double phallus.
21:50We have to imagine our Pompeians trying to escape from a disaster
21:55and quickly having to find some objects to bring with them, protecting their new life.
22:03And so, probably hoping also in the favour of the gods in order to survive to the disaster.
22:22At the dig site, in a bedroom just off the atrium, the team have found more evidence that reveals the panic in Pompeii's final hours.
22:31In this environment, there was an earthquake.
22:46We saw a series of traces of burning fragments of carbon particles along the walls.
22:52It's extremely rare to find remains of Roman furniture, because normally wood decays quickly.
22:58And then, the soffit of the room has fallen off the roof of the room.
23:08It is extremely rare to find remains of Roman furniture,
23:12because normally wood decays quickly.
23:16But here, the charred remains of this bed were preserved by the fire itself.
23:22It is incredible because we can reconstruct the shape of the bed,
23:28and the size of the bed, because we have the position of the feet,
23:33of the wood staff that connected the metal feet.
23:38We have one here, very evident, and another here,
23:42which is remained like an imprint,
23:44so we have precise measurements of the bed.
23:47And then, there are traces of these cloths in lana
23:52inside a canvas that looks like our canvas,
23:57which is a canvas with a very large frame.
24:00How did the fire develop?
24:13We are not sure.
24:14But we can think about small thunderstorms
24:18that make a lucerne full of oil on the ground,
24:22close to a mobile, and the fire develop.
24:25Over the years, archaeologists in Pompeii have found dozens
24:37of different types of Roman oil lamps.
24:40These are a series of lucerne of small form,
24:44of common form,
24:46that was the most diffuse way of illuminating the environment
24:52in the evening,
24:54in the evening,
24:55in the evening.
24:56The lucerne that we consider
24:59responsible for the fire
25:01inside the bed,
25:03probably was a lucerne of this type,
25:06that,
25:08that,
25:09with its oil boiling water,
25:11provoca an incendio here in Pompeii.
25:15And then,
25:17the brewery's
25:21didn't exist in the evening.
25:22The
25:25main
25:37part of the fire
25:40of the town
25:42I think it was like hell on earth.
25:47You imagine here a fire, roofs collapsing,
25:51people screaming, trying to escape, others hiding.
25:55Some believed the world was going to end,
25:58and others, that the gods didn't exist anymore
26:02or had withdrawn from the world.
26:05There's a new eternal darkness.
26:12Despite the widespread panic,
26:16the city escaped the full force
26:18of the first three deadly pyroclastic flows
26:21as they headed west into the town of Herculaneum.
26:27But as dawn broke, Pompeii's luck ran out.
26:35The fourth pyroclastic flow
26:37headed south-eastwards towards Pompeii.
26:42The air would have been thick with the smell of sulphur dioxide,
26:48a very strong, eggy smell.
26:50And if they thought the ash and pumice raining on their roofs was bad,
26:53this was something else entirely.
26:58Anybody who was still alive
27:00had not been killed by a collapsing roof
27:02would have seen a...
27:04almost like a cloud coming down the volcano towards them.
27:07It had been almost imperceptible.
27:09It was so far away how fast-moving it was.
27:15As the super-heated avalanche crashed into the city,
27:18it killed and buried everything in its path.
27:24Today, we can see evidence of the power and ferocity
27:28of these pyroclastic flows.
27:30These rocks here do tell us an important part of the story of the eruption.
27:36In the lower part of this exposure of rock,
27:39we're seeing these pumice-rich ash deposits from the volcano
27:43during the earlier phase of the eruption.
27:45But here we have quite a different rock type.
27:48This rock here has these really obvious lines,
27:52these sub-horizontal lines within it called lamination.
27:57And they form by fast-moving flows.
28:00So flows that are moving so fast that you can't build ripples or little dunes.
28:05You actually just flatten the sediments out.
28:07And these rocks were deposited by one of these pyroclastic flows.
28:11And it's haunting to think that a seemingly inconsequential,
28:17one-metre-thick package of rock caused such chaos and death.
28:22Because even if you were able to climb out of this lower package of ash,
28:27I'd have been up to my chest and my head would have been sticking out of it.
28:31If I was lucky and I was strong, I could have clambered up to the top of that layer.
28:35But then suddenly, the surge, the pyroclastic flow,
28:38would have just swept me off my feet.
28:40And that would have been the end of me.
28:51In the 1960s, archaeologists found a group of individuals,
28:56buried in the ash,
28:59discovered close to the southern gate.
29:02Today, we know them as the fugitives.
29:07Experts believe they survived the first phase of eruption,
29:11only to be caught by the deadly pyroclastic flow.
29:16in the 1960s, archaeologists became the only one of the p random inhabitants of the land.
29:19The two, the other people who've witnessed the
29:27world's old, the territory of the pioneers in the world.
29:29But the first day, we ended up with many axes,
29:30the most important part ofória and the most important parts of the country are found.
29:32You have here an entire community, a small family perhaps.
29:37There are older people, there are younger people.
29:41There is somebody who is a little over a year old,
29:44who would not have been able to walk, who would have been carried.
29:51They grouped.
29:56They were not dead in an hour from the start of the eruption.
30:01They survived until the next morning.
30:04So they had a lot of time to think about what was happening
30:08and how they could possibly respond to what was unfolding.
30:16Maybe the most direct parallel that we have
30:20is what happened in the Twin Towers after the 9-11 attacks.
30:25Because that also was a situation that was unknown to people.
30:32People understood what had happened to some extent,
30:37but they didn't know the buildings would collapse.
30:41And it's very hard to imagine how you respond then.
30:44So some people immediately started to find their way to safety.
30:51Maybe up to half, but the other half did not.
30:55And there's at least a third of all people who waited more than five minutes.
31:00And we know of one group of about 16 people in one of the towers.
31:07They got together in a conference room,
31:09had a conversation about the situation for about an hour,
31:13and then decided to leave the building.
31:19And think about what that might mean in a situation like in Pompeii,
31:23where you have very little time to decide.
31:26There will have been panic.
31:29There will have been fear.
31:32There will have been a lot of uncertainty.
31:35What are we going to do now?
31:36How are we going to get out?
31:38When is the right moment?
31:41But people stick together because you want to be with the people
31:48that you're most familiar with in the circumstances.
31:51I think what this teaches us about us as human beings
32:02is that we are fundamentally social beings
32:06and we are fundamentally beings who are rooted in familiarities.
32:12So come a moment where you have no reference framework,
32:16you're starting to count your familiarities.
32:19You're going to go back to a place that you understand.
32:23But also, you're going to take care of the people you know.
32:27So suppose I would be in a situation like that,
32:30I would immediately run for my family
32:32and make sure they were safe.
32:34But for these fugitives,
32:39it wasn't a straightforward decision process.
32:42It wasn't that you could make a right decision.
32:44You simply had to be lucky and these people were unlucky.
32:47They were trying to navigate the crisis.
32:51And it didn't work out.
33:03While we may never know exactly why the fugitives remained together,
33:08in 1933, archaeologists discovered two more bodies
33:14in a building known as the House of the Blacksmith.
33:18The victims are a young male and an older female,
33:23probably a son and his mother.
33:27The question is, why did they stay?
33:30As you can see in the photos of the time,
33:33the two individuals are inside the cenere
33:38which is indicative of the phase of the piroclastic flow,
33:42S4, that flow that enters Pompeii,
33:45excavate the walls and kills everything that was alive in the city,
33:50animals and men.
33:52The woman was clinging to a chest,
34:04which contained two rings,
34:07while the male was lying on a bed.
34:12Examining his spine,
34:14Dr. Valeria Amoretti has found abnormalities.
34:18olması
34:31NHSN
34:35L4
34:36L4
34:38L4
34:40With the male partially disabled by tuberculosis,
34:46perhaps he and his mother hope to wait out the eruption.
34:51With the male partially disabled by tuberculosis,
34:57perhaps he and his mother hope to wait out the eruption.
35:02They didn't know what was happening.
35:05So the reactions were two,
35:09either to escape or to close at home and to wait.
35:12In this case, the choice was the second.
35:35When we started to excavate the salon,
35:39from the beginning of the first painting,
35:42we imagined a mosaic garden of rare beauty.
35:50We don't know what we will find.
35:53We expect to find something integral,
35:57well preserved, the best way possible,
36:01the best way possible.
36:03There are all the promises that happen,
36:05but until I don't see it,
36:07I'm like St. Tommaso.
36:08Until I don't see it, I don't believe.
36:10So this is the story.
36:13Oh, it's a digga that's coming!
36:16It's a special moment
36:19because we have to be careful
36:21and not to cause damage
36:23to a forest that was preserved below for two years.
36:28Yes, yes.
36:29Here, here, here.
36:31There are little ones!
36:33Please.
36:34This one has a little piece of wood.
36:36It looks like this one
36:38...
36:39Here we are!
36:40Here we are!
36:41Oh, here we are!
36:42Here we are!
36:43Here we are little pieces.
36:44This one is a small piece.
36:45Here we're small piece of wood.
36:46Here we are.
36:47There is something like this.
36:48I think it is integral.
36:49It looks like this one!
36:50Here we're just...
36:51...
36:55Here we are.
36:56To make small pieces.
36:59Yes, it has been preserved.
37:03Good money.
37:05And geometry, small.
37:07At the moment we can say that these are geometric designs.
37:11They are geometric designs.
37:17Keep in mind that we are at the feet of the walls.
37:21So the more we go to the center,
37:23the more we can see that there is a better design
37:28than the center of the wall.
37:34For the first time in this excavation,
37:36we see a mosaic tree
37:38compared to the other houses that we have excavated along the Nola.
37:42We start at the level of pavimental decoration
37:45to have more important results,
37:49more beautiful and more fascinating.
37:51It is certainly a proprietor who was a faculty member
37:55and also a sculptor of the beautiful.
38:01Gennaro,
38:05we are lucky, look at this.
38:08What is it?
38:09Oh, a coin?
38:10Yes, it is on the pavement.
38:13It is on the walls.
38:14Wow, that is beautiful.
38:16Look at this.
38:17It is very curious.
38:20So, you can read something, eh?
38:24There is the face of the emperor's face
38:26on the right side.
38:29There is a part of the inscription in the Sergo.
38:32Here, a part of the lower side.
38:36It is probable that this coin...
38:37...has lost someone from the village.
38:39Yes.
38:40It is probable.
38:40And the case I wanted.
38:42That is the next one.
38:43That is the next one.
38:44That is the next one.
38:44In 2023.
38:45Okay.
38:46Okay.
38:47Okay.
38:48The discovery of a mosaic
38:51and the highly decorated walls
38:53suggests the owner enjoyed displaying his wealth.
38:57So, what I feel is, I, that I enter in this environment,
39:03is...
39:04I have a wonderful feeling, I have a stupor,
39:06because it is a sense of intensity that I give this painting.
39:12I feel like if I enter in a party for the festival,
39:16which is what I wanted to transmit the owner of this Domus.
39:19But the vibrant, brightly coloured walls of the living room
39:34are in stark contrast to the room next door.
39:43Here, some truly extraordinary decorations
39:46are emerging from the pumice.
39:49The
39:54space
39:58The
39:59It is fascinating, the quality of the painting, extraordinary.
40:03And you see three figures,
40:09a dog, a hunting dog,
40:14which is,
40:16dog hunting dog which is also very the details the the eyes everything and you
40:24see that for example her dress it's it's almost transparent and you see her her
40:33expression and the hair it's all very very beautiful
40:41the scene is from Homer's Iliad it shows Paris the Prince of Troy when he first meets Helen the
40:53most beautiful woman of the Greek world it's kind of unique as a composition right and so they're
41:01saying we are not using one of the typical mythological scenes which are very very common
41:10in Pompeii but it's something you know a bit more special and this shows also the education the
41:18culture of the people who lived here or pretend to have this culture who knows right what's also
41:27interesting it's all painted in black this usually it was four rooms which were being used in the
41:35winter and so in the evening you would have to use lamps and the smoke of the lamps tended to blacken
41:45the walls and so Vitruvius the the author suggested well the rooms you're using in the winter where you
41:52have to use lamps paint them in black so you don't see the the smoke on the walls
41:58on another wall the god Apollo complete with his lyre is trying to seduce his priestess Cassandra I think
42:13it it often was first of all showing off one's education and you know culture and so you'd say
42:20you know I know Greek I know Greek culture I paint my house with Greek images so you always have to
42:29imagine that this is being used during a practice which is social practice people meet here eat
42:38together and often you have philosophical political cultural conversation the level of wealth and
42:49sophistication on display implies the owner of this property was a man of means and culture
42:55and in the shrine room more clues to his identity have emerged a red painted inscription
43:06peace Mohammad
43:11contact on display
43:16peace
43:17peace
43:21peace
43:23peace
43:24peace
43:25peace
43:27peace
43:29peace
43:30peace
43:32peace
43:34peace
43:34It's interesting. It's an absolute new thing.
43:38You can read an A, a R, a V, another A,
43:43and the last one is a D, and this one is an E.
43:48And then... C++.
43:50C++.
43:51And then there's a figure.
43:53This can also be a Q with...
43:55Ah, C++.
43:56Yes.
43:57This is the Q with the final point.
44:01No.
44:02Oro vos vagiatis.
44:05It's an electoral inscription.
44:07I ask you to vote for it.
44:09In the kitchen.
44:11In the kitchen.
44:12Maybe if you do it, you can take it on the street.
44:17Who is ARV?
44:19And why is he asking for votes?
44:22The team has already found his initials on the bakery's millstone.
44:27And now, a further inscription seems to finally reveal
44:31his identity.
44:35So here we have a point, still abbreviated.
44:40Aulum.
44:41Aulus.
44:42Aulum.
44:43And then we can read here...
44:45Rustium.
44:48Ah, so this would be his kind of family name.
44:53Aulum.
44:54And then you have Verum.
44:56That would be the last name.
44:58So we know that his name was actually Aulus Rustius Verus.
45:04And then we have again...
45:06Ed.
45:07Edilem.
45:08Edilem.
45:09Edilem is kind of the second highest office of the town.
45:13And then this strange form of three letters all merged into one.
45:21Oro vos vagiatis.
45:23I ask you to vote, to make him Edilem of the town.
45:35So we now know, thanks to this inscription, that his full name was Aulus Rustius Verus.
45:42So, was Aulus Rustius Verus, the owner of all these buildings, the laundry, the bakery,
45:55and a luxurious property with the imposing black room?
46:00As a well-known public figure running for political office, owning a bakery would have given him an edge.
46:10The thing is that, in antiquity, they weren't so concerned about anti-corruption.
46:18And so they officially accepted that you could bribe voters.
46:24So you could somehow buy votes.
46:27You can imagine that you could tell people, this bakery is supported by this great guy, Aulus Rustius Verus.
46:36And the bread you're buying, you know, is so cheap, thanks to him also.
46:42So when you eat your daily bread, think of how wonderful a person he is and consider giving him your vote.
46:50But the political career of Aulus Rustius Verus was cut short.
47:02The eruption of Vesuvius stopped everything in its tracks.
47:06And as the sixth and final pyroclastic flow buried what remained of the city, he, like Pompeii, was forgotten.
47:1917,000 years later, the ancient city was rediscovered.
47:38Over the centuries, as its buildings, artifacts and people slowly emerged from the pumice and ash,
47:47archaeologists began to write the story of Pompeii.
47:51This dig is a new chapter in that story.
47:58A year into the excavation of Insula 10, Gennaro, Alessandro and the rest of the team are beginning to understand this extraordinary set of buildings and the people who lived here.
48:10Pompeii, you know, it's always a fragmented history, but sometimes you can put together a little story and we can get very close.
48:25You can see the dining rooms and bedrooms and even the bathrooms and we can see how these people lived.
48:33The team have uncovered Aulus Rustius Verus' thriving business empire, consisting of a bakery,
48:48and a high-class laundry, complete with 2,000-year-old plumbing.
48:54This is really fascinating because this is not your normal drain, this is a serious drain.
49:09The team found both businesses connected to a lavishly decorated reception area,
49:14where the heavy marble furniture and bespoke frescoes showed to ARV's guests that he was a man of means.
49:23And a wall painting, depicting the Greek myth of Achilles, revealed ARV liked to parade his culture too.
49:36This environment was the salon where the manager received the customers.
49:44Behind both his bakery and laundry, the team are uncovering what could be ARV's extravagantly decorated home.
49:57What is now clear is that at the time of the eruption, ARV's home and businesses were undergoing major renovation,
50:10as every room is full of building materials and tools.
50:25I'm in Tung Videos.
50:26This house at the moment, there is not a trace of everyday life.
50:38but there is a continuous presence and in every single environment of the camping activity.
50:45So it's true that the pavement is in the ground, not finished,
50:52we have two pieces of cut and riempit from material for work of construction.
50:58So the everyday life is this, the worker who paints,
51:06he builds, he repairs, the worker who carries the tegons in the atrium,
51:11he ammassa and puts on the building a number of tegons.
51:16This is the daily life of this house.
51:23But it is the discovery of the three crushed bodies close to the bakery
51:30that speaks to the real tragedy of the eruption of AD 79.
51:35The team believe these are the bodies of enslaved workers who perhaps sought shelter in the bakery.
51:48And a final phase of excavation has now revealed the full brutality of life for some of Pompeii's poorest.
52:03Now it all falls into place where both humans and animals become mere elements in some kind of factory mechanism.
52:22So we have to imagine they lived in these two rooms.
52:34And there is only one way out and you take it if you have to deliver the bread.
52:41And it is this door.
52:45The only exit from the bakery leads to the atrium, where the bakery manager would receive his guests.
52:53So, remember, if the door is closed, you would not see the bakery.
53:00But there is one other opening, as far as we know, between the bakery and this room.
53:08And so you had this window here, but it was closed with iron bars.
53:15The house owner evidently wanted to avoid people crossing from inside the bakery to this part,
53:22because from here you had many ways to escape.
53:26The enslaved workers may have been literally imprisoned inside the bakery.
53:38There is little light probably, little space.
53:42We have to imagine the dust of the flour here filling the air.
53:47And this very heavy, monotonous work all day long.
53:52And so it was one of the most terrible fates of destinies of slaves in antiquity to work in these bread bakeries.
54:15Could it be that the victims, the two women and a child, weren't seeking shelter?
54:21But had no choice.
54:24And were trapped, unable to escape.
54:30We see the dark side of ancient slavery, where there is no trust, no promises of liberation.
54:40There is only the root violence of forced labour.
54:46We are now in the west of woe.
54:47This is the end of the world.
54:48Two thousand years after the eruption of A.D. 79.
55:05Vesuvius is still a dangerously active volcano.
55:11An ever-present threat, which every year unites the residents of Naples in prayer
55:17to keep them and their city safe.
55:41Despite the threat of another eruption, people are determined to stay here, resilient in their love for their land.
56:11You can't put it in a mask, the smell of the sea, the smell of the morning in the bar in which you take the coffee,
56:20the staying together, the friendship.
56:28So maybe this land gives you the precariousness of life.
56:38And so, for example, the teaching is to stay attentive and not lose any moment of their own life.
56:56Always live with awareness that it can be the last day and with the hope that the day will not end.
Be the first to comment