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Good evening!

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We are in one of the most important

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archaeological sites of the world:

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Pompeii.

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We're in one of

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the most important sites of Pompeii:

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the big theater.

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2000 years ago, you had

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a thousand people watching

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anyone on the stage.

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But do we really know Pompeii?

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Well, yes.

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We've seen so many movies,

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read so many novels

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telling us about the big volcano,

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telling us about the lava,

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the lava flows and everything.

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Well, in fact, there are many myths

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to be cleared up.

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First of all,

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we didn't have any volcano visible at all.

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And that is something that

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can be shocking, but if you speak to

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and have a lunch

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maybe with a vulcanologist,

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or an anthropologist,

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or an archaeologist,

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he will tell you

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so many truths about Pompeii

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that you will really be surprised to know.

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First of all,

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so we're talking about volcanoes.

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Today it's a towering volcano.

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But at the time of Pompeii,

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it didn't exist,

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for the simple reason that it started

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to exist that day of the eruption.

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From that day, it started to grow

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and become what we see today.

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So, what could the Pompeiians see?

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Very simple.

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There was a small mound with a crest.

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And you can still see it today.

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It's exactly where the big volcano

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is sitting today.

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And, if you could see it at that time,

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you could have seen so many woods

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You could have seen, I don't know, deer

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Pompeiians would probably go there

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to collect wood, pick up mushrooms,

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make love.

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It was a friend that betrayed them.

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So, that's the first thing: no volcano,

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the first myth to clear up.

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And then, another thing is the lava.

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You didn't have a single drop of lava

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getting to Pompeii. Not a single one.

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But, gases, ashes, lapilli, and so on.

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So, that's another myth.

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And we will see what happened exactly.

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The third myth is about

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the date of the eruption.

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We know that everything happened

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the 24th twenty-fourth of August,

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in 79 A.D.

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But how do we know that?

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But, we know that because

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Pliny the Younger wrote that in a letter.

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He was a witness.

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Actually, if you try to see,

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there are at least seven witnesses,

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seven survivors of the eruption.

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Today, I would also like

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to spend some time

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to answer one question, that is:

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"Would we have survived the eruption,

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had we been there

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almost 2000 years ago?"

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So, Pliny the Younger said

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that everything happened

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on the 24th of August.

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But how do we know that?

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I told you there was a letter.

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This letter, though, is not here anymore.

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It vanished in time.

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But, in the Middle Ages, the monks started

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to write some copies of that letter.

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And so we have three families

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of that old letter made by monks

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who were writing copies

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and another one would copy the copy

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and so forth.

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But, of course, they would make mistakes.

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So, is the date right or not?

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Well, if you see the different letters,

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you will see that they are different dates

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One says "Nine days before

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the Calends of September,"

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which is the 24th of August.

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Another one says, "Nine days before

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the Calends of November,"

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which is the 24th of October.

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Where is the answer?

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Well, the answer is buried here,

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in the strata of Pompeii.

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In fact, archaeologists have been finding

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nuts, have been finding chestnuts,

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dates, dried figs,

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which are not really summer fruits,

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but rather you find them in the fall.

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And they've been finding

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so many little clues

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about the warm weather.

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For instance, people were dressed up

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with very warm clothes,

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with scarves, for instance.

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So, that means that, probably,

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it was a very cold climate,

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which makes more sense

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if it is around November.

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The one interesting clue, though,

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is about wine.

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In the diggings,

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in the decades in the past,

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archaeologists found some big jars

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containing wine.

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So, what the Romans would do

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is that they would have grape harvests,

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and they would collect grape juice,

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put that in those big, gigantic jars

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called dolia.

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And they would wait ten days

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for it to boil, to ferment,

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and then, twenty days

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just to check that everything was okay.

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And then they would cover

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and seal everything.

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And that's exactly

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what the archaeologists found.

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So, as a matter of fact,

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grape harvest was over

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at least from a month.

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And that would probably tell you

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that the date of the eruption

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was around the end of October.

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So, 24th of October makes sense.

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So, that, of course, is no definite proof,

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but that's interesting to see that

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such a known site like Pompeii

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really is still an open site

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with many discoveries to be done.

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Another myth to be cleared up is that

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Pompeii, we always see that in the movies,

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was a city with wealthy people,

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with banquets, gladiators, and so on.

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Well, that's not the truth.

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In the day of the eruption,

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it was a city full in crisis.

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There was no running water,

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no running water,

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So, no bathhouses, the thermae.

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You didn't see anyone having fun

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in the thermae, because

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you didn't have water.

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There was one therma working

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which had its own reservoir of water.

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So, maybe people would go there.

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But, there was a big crisis.

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And another thing is that, well,

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you didn't have a lot of people

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like in the old times in Pompeii

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because you had a lot of earthquakes.

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Earthquakes were a signal

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of the eruption coming, getting close

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like the magma was pushing

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and provoking those earthquakes.

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So, many people, especially aristocracy,

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had gone away.

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You had new people, new rich,

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former slaves, the liberti, so called,

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who would buy fancy houses

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and they would live there.

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But, you didn't have

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the old society of Pompeii.

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You didn't have running water.

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Running water was not there,

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because probably the aqueduct

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was broken in some places,

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maybe due to earthquakes,

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maybe due to the swelling of the soil,

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of the earth.

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We don't know exactly.

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So, as you can see, there are

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many myths to be cleared up.

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So, let's go to the day of the eruption.

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What happened exactly?

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And let's try to answer the question,

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"Would I have survived?"

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Well, first of all, let's go to that day.

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If it was the 24th of October,

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it was a Friday. Clear sky.

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We know that because

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one of the witnesses,

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who was living 30 kilometers

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away from here, saw everything.

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So, imagine that it was probably,

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we don't know, of course,

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the end of October,

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clear sky, maybe,

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you know, a very cold morning,

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and then, what happened?

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Well, we know from the letter

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of Pliny the Younger

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that everything started,

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more or less, at noon, lunchtime.

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Well, vulcanologists found some clues

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that everything happened slightly before.

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Well, Pliny didn't see that;

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he was 30 kilometers away.

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But, probably, the volcano started

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to open, crack open in that morning.

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Because, you see, that small,

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well, long mound,

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similar to the back of a whale,

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that betrayed the Romans,

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was not a mound.

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It was a volcano, a very old volcano,

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silent volcano, that had not erupted

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for the last centuries.

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So, no one knew it was a volcano.

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But that morning, it woke up.

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And it started to crack open

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and exactly, let's say,

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the first hours of the morning

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were terrible.

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People, let's say, started to gather

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in the Forum, which is, you know,

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it was the central place,

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central square of Pompeii.

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Everyone would gather there

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in the morning, usually,

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just to get information,

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to meet friends.

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It was just like a tv set of that time.

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And they started to gather.

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And they saw something weird.

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That very low mound was covered

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with a kind of fog, let's say,

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with ashes that had covered

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one of the sides.

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It looked like it had snowed.

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And they started to speak,

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one with the other,

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"What happened?"

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Well, some people probably came

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from the countryside,

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telling strange things,

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telling people, "Well, you know, there,

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we hear noises like thunder.

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There is a strange smell of sulfur

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just from that mountain."

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But, then something happened.

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The whole thing started to explode.

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The mouth got opened and you had

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a gigantic column of ashes, vapors,

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going up in the sky.

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It would reach more than

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32 kilometers of height

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in the hour, which is three times

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what, actually, a jetliner can reach.

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So, just imagine people seeing

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that column going high in the sky,

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just staring at something.

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They didn't even know what a volcano was.

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Well, this is just the beginning

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of the tragedy.

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If you think about that column

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going up and expanding in the air,

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that's what Pliny the Younger tells us,

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you can imagine like a big stain of ink

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00:10:11,099 --> 00:10:13,176
getting bigger and bigger,

282
00:10:13,176 --> 00:10:14,856
covering the sun.

283
00:10:14,856 --> 00:10:16,278
And then, people started

284
00:10:16,278 --> 00:10:17,194
to hear something.

285
00:10:17,194 --> 00:10:20,472
It was just a noise of grail,

286
00:10:20,472 --> 00:10:22,453
a noise of something falling.

287
00:10:22,453 --> 00:10:24,663
Actually, you had the lapilli.

288
00:10:24,663 --> 00:10:26,459
You can see them all around us.

289
00:10:26,459 --> 00:10:28,605
Lapilli? What is a lapilli?

290
00:10:28,605 --> 00:10:32,036
It is a very, very small rock,

291
00:10:32,036 --> 00:10:32,853
but very light.

292
00:10:32,853 --> 00:10:34,164
It floats in the water.

293
00:10:34,164 --> 00:10:35,933
It's just like a piece of cork.

294
00:10:35,933 --> 00:10:37,311
It doesn't really kill you.

295
00:10:37,311 --> 00:10:40,587
But, it is something falling from the sky.

296
00:10:40,587 --> 00:10:41,349
What is it?

297
00:10:41,349 --> 00:10:42,690
Well, just imagine

298
00:10:42,690 --> 00:10:43,876
a bottle of champagne.

299
00:10:43,876 --> 00:10:45,781
You open it, you have foam coming up.

300
00:10:45,781 --> 00:10:49,541
But if you see in the lower part

301
00:10:49,541 --> 00:10:52,050
of the bottle, the wine is still watery.

302
00:10:52,050 --> 00:10:53,155
I mean, you still have wine.

303
00:10:53,155 --> 00:10:54,867
But as the wine goes up in the neck,

304
00:10:54,867 --> 00:10:57,785
it transforms itself into foam.

305
00:10:57,785 --> 00:11:00,746
And that's exactly what that volcano did.

306
00:11:00,746 --> 00:11:03,259
The magma in the magmatic chamber

307
00:11:03,259 --> 00:11:05,195
was magma, but as it came up,

308
00:11:05,195 --> 00:11:06,995
it was just like a foam,

309
00:11:06,995 --> 00:11:09,692
solidified foam, that turned out

310
00:11:09,692 --> 00:11:11,849
to be those lapilli falling.

311
00:11:11,849 --> 00:11:14,362
So people started just to see,

312
00:11:14,362 --> 00:11:17,044
to hear that, those pieces of rock,

313
00:11:17,044 --> 00:11:19,214
very small and very light,

314
00:11:19,214 --> 00:11:20,494
hitting the tiles.

315
00:11:20,494 --> 00:11:22,061
But they were not the killers.

316
00:11:22,061 --> 00:11:23,236
So, I asked myself,

317
00:11:23,236 --> 00:11:24,828
"Why didn't the people go away?"

318
00:11:24,828 --> 00:11:26,591
Well, if you go and see

319
00:11:26,591 --> 00:11:28,192
the strata of the lapilli,

320
00:11:28,192 --> 00:11:30,846
you will see, you find rocks that big,

321
00:11:30,846 --> 00:11:33,167
gigantic, big rocks

322
00:11:33,167 --> 00:11:34,914
coming from the volcano,

323
00:11:34,914 --> 00:11:36,476
coming from kilometers,

324
00:11:36,476 --> 00:11:39,860
really, killers, like meteors,

325
00:11:39,860 --> 00:11:41,528
falling from the sky.

326
00:11:41,528 --> 00:11:43,960
Actually, in Ercolano,

327
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:45,854
which is not too far away from here,

328
00:11:45,854 --> 00:11:48,036
in the past a skeleton of a man

329
00:11:48,036 --> 00:11:50,661
without legs was found,

330
00:11:50,661 --> 00:11:51,653
and close to him

331
00:11:51,653 --> 00:11:53,556
there was a big, gigantic rock

332
00:11:53,556 --> 00:11:55,153
fallen from that volcano.

333
00:11:55,153 --> 00:11:56,978
And then, so people, just imagine,

334
00:11:56,978 --> 00:11:59,047
started to see those rocks coming down,

335
00:11:59,047 --> 00:12:02,026
smoking rocks, hitting the roofs,

336
00:12:02,026 --> 00:12:03,486
making holes in the roofs.

337
00:12:03,486 --> 00:12:05,401
So people started to go away.

338
00:12:05,401 --> 00:12:07,028
They started to do

339
00:12:07,028 --> 00:12:08,562
what you and me would have done,

340
00:12:08,562 --> 00:12:09,941
that is, going back home,

341
00:12:09,941 --> 00:12:11,681
looking for the people we love.

342
00:12:11,681 --> 00:12:14,623
And just, it was panic everywhere.

343
00:12:14,623 --> 00:12:16,663
As a matter of fact,

344
00:12:16,663 --> 00:12:18,833
that was a time when

345
00:12:18,833 --> 00:12:21,181
you would have your life saved.

346
00:12:21,181 --> 00:12:23,594
If you had fled,

347
00:12:23,594 --> 00:12:25,398
if you had gone away from Pompeii,

348
00:12:25,398 --> 00:12:26,898
you could have survived.

349
00:12:26,898 --> 00:12:29,436
Why? Because the lapilli

350
00:12:29,436 --> 00:12:31,726
started to accumulate in the soil

351
00:12:31,726 --> 00:12:34,349
for hours. But after two or three hours,

352
00:12:34,349 --> 00:12:37,574
it was that straight up lapilli,

353
00:12:37,574 --> 00:12:38,558
more or less.

354
00:12:38,558 --> 00:12:41,061
After that time, you couldn't

355
00:12:41,061 --> 00:12:42,901
see anything outside Pompeii.

356
00:12:42,901 --> 00:12:44,254
You couldn't see the roads,

357
00:12:44,254 --> 00:12:46,315
just like when you have a heavy snow.

358
00:12:46,315 --> 00:12:47,570
You couldn't see anything.

359
00:12:47,570 --> 00:12:48,976
So, where could you go?

360
00:12:48,976 --> 00:12:50,663
And another thing is that you had

361
00:12:50,663 --> 00:12:52,021
like a fog coming down.

362
00:12:52,021 --> 00:12:53,545
It was actually like a,

363
00:12:53,545 --> 00:12:55,594
imagine a desert storm.

364
00:12:55,594 --> 00:12:58,260
You had like ashes coming down.

365
00:12:58,260 --> 00:12:59,472
You couldn't see

366
00:12:59,472 --> 00:13:01,214
more than one or two meters.

367
00:13:01,214 --> 00:13:03,610
And these ashes were containing

368
00:13:03,610 --> 00:13:05,253
pieces of glass, actually,

369
00:13:05,253 --> 00:13:06,534
that were actually

370
00:13:06,534 --> 00:13:08,941
hurting your windpipe.

371
00:13:08,941 --> 00:13:10,636
So you had to breathe with a cloth

372
00:13:10,636 --> 00:13:12,516
dipped in water.

373
00:13:12,516 --> 00:13:14,391
It was really a nightmare.

374
00:13:14,391 --> 00:13:15,559
So it is normal to think

375
00:13:15,559 --> 00:13:17,955
that people just hid in their houses.

376
00:13:17,955 --> 00:13:19,975
What happened then?

377
00:13:19,975 --> 00:13:22,206
Well, the lapilli started to accumulate.

378
00:13:22,206 --> 00:13:25,367
Once they reached something like a meter,

379
00:13:25,367 --> 00:13:27,858
a cubic meter, there would be

380
00:13:27,858 --> 00:13:31,374
an equivalent of six men as weight.

381
00:13:31,374 --> 00:13:33,346
So you had the roof starting to collapse.

382
00:13:33,346 --> 00:13:35,794
Actually, one-third of the people

383
00:13:35,794 --> 00:13:37,394
found dead in Pompeii

384
00:13:37,394 --> 00:13:41,037
died due to the collapsing of the roofs

385
00:13:41,037 --> 00:13:41,906
or the floors.

386
00:13:41,906 --> 00:13:43,933
Probably you had also earthquakes

387
00:13:43,933 --> 00:13:45,096
in that process.

388
00:13:45,096 --> 00:13:48,045
So people were in the houses, screaming

389
00:13:48,045 --> 00:13:49,206
asking for help.

390
00:13:49,206 --> 00:13:50,620
No one could see anything.

391
00:13:50,620 --> 00:13:52,718
It was like the end of the world for them.

392
00:13:52,718 --> 00:13:55,368
And that, for twelve hours.

393
00:13:55,368 --> 00:13:57,175
Twelve hours later

394
00:13:57,175 --> 00:13:59,162
say, at one o'clock in the morning,

395
00:13:59,162 --> 00:14:02,209
let's move and go to Ercolano.

396
00:14:02,209 --> 00:14:03,641
Ercolano is another town,

397
00:14:03,641 --> 00:14:05,772
very close to the sea,

398
00:14:05,772 --> 00:14:07,407
between the sea and the volcano,

399
00:14:07,407 --> 00:14:08,880
which is about six kilometers

400
00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:09,976
away from the volcano;

401
00:14:09,976 --> 00:14:12,489
Pompeii is about eight kilometers away.

402
00:14:12,489 --> 00:14:14,452
So when archaeologists started to dig

403
00:14:14,452 --> 00:14:17,661
through the strata in Ercolano,

404
00:14:17,661 --> 00:14:19,986
they couldn't find dead people.

405
00:14:19,986 --> 00:14:21,757
All you see are scattered skeletons.

406
00:14:21,757 --> 00:14:23,192
So everyone thought that

407
00:14:23,192 --> 00:14:27,556
the inhabitants of Ercolano had escaped,

408
00:14:27,556 --> 00:14:28,673
escaped somewhere.

409
00:14:28,673 --> 00:14:30,795
They had actually managed to survive.

410
00:14:30,795 --> 00:14:32,842
But once the archaeologists

411
00:14:32,842 --> 00:14:34,249
reached the beach

412
00:14:34,249 --> 00:14:37,152
and got to the arches, the arcade

413
00:14:37,152 --> 00:14:39,181
where, usually, the fishing boats

414
00:14:39,181 --> 00:14:41,426
were parked, just like [in] a garage,

415
00:14:41,426 --> 00:14:43,733
they found three hundred skeletons.

416
00:14:43,733 --> 00:14:45,681
They all died in a single moment.

417
00:14:45,681 --> 00:14:47,661
When you see those skeletons,

418
00:14:47,661 --> 00:14:49,800
you realize something: they all died

419
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,669
without defending themselves.

420
00:14:52,669 --> 00:14:53,963
It's just as if something

421
00:14:53,963 --> 00:14:56,748
had unplugged life from their bodies.

422
00:14:56,748 --> 00:14:58,079
Just, boom!

423
00:14:58,079 --> 00:14:59,831
And what happened,

424
00:14:59,831 --> 00:15:02,181
and the vulcanologists will tell you that,

425
00:15:02,181 --> 00:15:05,051
is that the gigantic column

426
00:15:05,051 --> 00:15:06,804
going up in the sky,

427
00:15:06,804 --> 00:15:09,537
at a certain time, couldn't stand,

428
00:15:09,537 --> 00:15:11,789
and it sat on itself,

429
00:15:11,789 --> 00:15:13,181
it just went down

430
00:15:13,181 --> 00:15:15,483
and transformed itself

431
00:15:15,483 --> 00:15:17,350
into deadly avalanches

432
00:15:17,350 --> 00:15:20,145
made of gas and ashes,

433
00:15:20,145 --> 00:15:22,901
coming down at a speed of

434
00:15:22,901 --> 00:15:24,716
one hundred kilometers per hour,

435
00:15:24,716 --> 00:15:28,065
with a, let's say, a heat of between

436
00:15:28,065 --> 00:15:30,551
five and six hundred degrees Celsius.

437
00:15:30,551 --> 00:15:33,280
So, that killed the people instantly.

438
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,342
If you want to think what happened,

439
00:15:35,342 --> 00:15:38,571
just imagine being on the shore

440
00:15:38,571 --> 00:15:40,176
and watching in the night

441
00:15:40,176 --> 00:15:42,161
the volcano, the red part,

442
00:15:42,161 --> 00:15:45,161
let's say, of the eruption,

443
00:15:45,161 --> 00:15:47,494
was instantly being covered by

444
00:15:47,494 --> 00:15:49,278
that avalanche that's coming down.

445
00:15:49,278 --> 00:15:50,722
You couldn't see anything.

446
00:15:50,722 --> 00:15:53,421
But, you know, vulcanologists

447
00:15:53,421 --> 00:15:55,110
would tell you, maybe you could see

448
00:15:55,110 --> 00:15:58,401
some flare, something like

449
00:15:58,401 --> 00:16:02,681
a flock of red, hot bats

450
00:16:02,681 --> 00:16:03,895
coming toward you.

451
00:16:03,895 --> 00:16:07,025
And people were instantly killed.

452
00:16:07,025 --> 00:16:08,602
The fact that you have the bone

453
00:16:08,602 --> 00:16:11,193
in contact with the ash layers

454
00:16:11,193 --> 00:16:15,883
means that skin, organs, muscles

455
00:16:15,883 --> 00:16:19,401
got vaporized in a matter of a second,

456
00:16:19,401 --> 00:16:20,339
a few seconds.

457
00:16:20,339 --> 00:16:22,324
So people died violently.

458
00:16:22,324 --> 00:16:24,000
Let's go back to Pompeii.

459
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:25,225
It's morning.

460
00:16:25,225 --> 00:16:27,656
People hear that things are changing.

461
00:16:27,656 --> 00:16:28,750
Probably you don't have

462
00:16:28,750 --> 00:16:30,949
the rain of lapilli anymore.

463
00:16:30,949 --> 00:16:32,901
So they wouldn't go away.

464
00:16:32,901 --> 00:16:35,062
But you have so many lapillis,

465
00:16:35,062 --> 00:16:36,769
it's impossible to open the door.

466
00:16:36,769 --> 00:16:38,325
So, actually, people go outside

467
00:16:38,325 --> 00:16:39,087
from the roofs

468
00:16:39,087 --> 00:16:41,320
and they start to run away.

469
00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:42,783
But at that time,

470
00:16:42,783 --> 00:16:45,553
the volcano does the same thing again,

471
00:16:45,553 --> 00:16:48,569
sits on himself and transforms his column

472
00:16:48,569 --> 00:16:51,019
on those deadly avalanches of gas.

473
00:16:51,019 --> 00:16:52,201
The first one stopped

474
00:16:52,201 --> 00:16:55,014
right at the suburbia of Pompeii.

475
00:16:55,014 --> 00:16:56,068
The second one kills

476
00:16:56,068 --> 00:16:57,116
anyone on the street.

477
00:16:57,116 --> 00:16:58,743
And that's what you see

478
00:16:58,743 --> 00:17:00,104
are those people, you see

479
00:17:00,104 --> 00:17:02,512
in those glass frameworks.

480
00:17:02,512 --> 00:17:03,814
These are the people

481
00:17:03,814 --> 00:17:04,905
killed in that moment.

482
00:17:04,905 --> 00:17:07,385
And the third one would come again

483
00:17:07,385 --> 00:17:09,214
and break down walls,

484
00:17:09,214 --> 00:17:12,316
open the roof and kill people inside.

485
00:17:12,316 --> 00:17:13,793
And then there is another one,

486
00:17:13,793 --> 00:17:16,229
the last one, that is so powerful,

487
00:17:16,229 --> 00:17:17,592
it goes all the way,

488
00:17:17,592 --> 00:17:20,205
even at thirty kilometers away

489
00:17:20,205 --> 00:17:22,070
and Pliny the Younger,

490
00:17:22,070 --> 00:17:24,020
the one that wrote that letter,

491
00:17:24,020 --> 00:17:26,847
was almost afraid to die.

492
00:17:26,847 --> 00:17:29,540
He was staying at thirty kilometers away.

493
00:17:29,540 --> 00:17:31,331
So this is what happened

494
00:17:31,331 --> 00:17:32,500
exactly in Pompeii.

495
00:17:32,500 --> 00:17:35,238
So what you see today

496
00:17:35,238 --> 00:17:37,809
is a place that probably

497
00:17:37,809 --> 00:17:38,991
don't tell you much

498
00:17:38,991 --> 00:17:42,777
about these problems, this atmosphere

499
00:17:42,777 --> 00:17:43,695
that happened.

500
00:17:43,695 --> 00:17:45,259
But when you find yourself

501
00:17:45,259 --> 00:17:47,534
in front of one of those bodies

502
00:17:47,534 --> 00:17:49,725
inside the glass frame,

503
00:17:49,725 --> 00:17:51,357
just remember that

504
00:17:51,357 --> 00:17:52,349
these are not statues.

505
00:17:52,349 --> 00:17:54,841
These are not petrified people.

506
00:17:54,841 --> 00:17:58,370
These are people in the process of dying

507
00:17:58,370 --> 00:18:00,518
in that intimate moment of their life.

508
00:18:00,518 --> 00:18:01,849
And we, I guess,

509
00:18:01,849 --> 00:18:03,849
should pay respect to them every time.

510
00:18:03,849 --> 00:18:04,898
Thank you.

511
00:18:04,898 --> 00:18:09,797
(applause)