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Good evening!

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We are in one of the most important
archaeological sites of the world:

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Pompeii.

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We're in one of the most important
sites of Pompeii:

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the big theater.

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2000 years ago, you had
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,
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,
it didn't exist,

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for the simple reason
that it started to exist

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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 to answer
one question, that is:

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"Would we have survived the eruption

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had we been here

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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
so many little clues

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about not-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
for it to boil, to ferment,

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and then twenty days,
just to check that everything was okay.

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And then they would cover
and seal everything.

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And that's exactly
what the archaeologists found.

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So, as a matter of fact,

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grape harvest was over
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
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, of the earth.

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We don't know exactly.

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So, as you can see, there are
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 one of the witnesses,

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who was living 30 kilometers
away from here,

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saw everything.

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So imagine that it was probably -
we don't know, of course -

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the end of October,

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crisp, 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
of Pliny the Younger

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that everything started
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;
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
in the morning, usually,

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just to get information, 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.
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,
one with the other,

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"What happened?"

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Well, some people probably came
from the countryside,

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telling strange things,

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telling people, "Well, you know, there,
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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getting bigger and bigger,

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covering the sun.

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And then, people started
to hear something.

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It was just a noise of grail,

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a noise of something falling.

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Actually, you had the lapilli.

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You can see them all around us.

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Lapilli? What is a lapilli?

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It is a very, very small rock,
but very light.

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It floats in the water.

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It's just like a piece of cork.

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It doesn't really kill you.

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But, it is something falling from the sky.

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What is it?

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Well, just imagine a bottle of champagne.

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You open it, you have foam coming up.

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But if you see in the lower part

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of the bottle, the wine is still watery.

273
00:10:52,050 --> 00:10:53,495
I mean, you still have wine.

274
00:10:53,519 --> 00:10:57,761
But as the wine goes up in the neck,
it transforms itself into foam.

275
00:10:57,785 --> 00:11:00,722
And that's exactly what that volcano did.

276
00:11:00,746 --> 00:11:03,235
The magma in the magmatic chamber

277
00:11:03,259 --> 00:11:05,171
was magma, but as it came up,

278
00:11:05,195 --> 00:11:06,971
it was just like a foam,

279
00:11:06,995 --> 00:11:09,668
solidified foam, that turned out

280
00:11:09,692 --> 00:11:11,825
to be those lapilli falling.

281
00:11:11,849 --> 00:11:14,338
So people started just to see,

282
00:11:14,362 --> 00:11:17,020
to hear that, those pieces of rock,

283
00:11:17,044 --> 00:11:19,190
very small and very light,

284
00:11:19,214 --> 00:11:20,470
hitting the tiles.

285
00:11:20,494 --> 00:11:22,037
But they were not the killers.

286
00:11:22,061 --> 00:11:23,212
So, I asked myself,

287
00:11:23,236 --> 00:11:24,804
"Why didn't the people go away?"

288
00:11:24,828 --> 00:11:26,567
Well, if you go and see

289
00:11:26,591 --> 00:11:28,168
the strata of the lapilli,

290
00:11:28,192 --> 00:11:30,822
you will see, you find rocks that big,

291
00:11:30,846 --> 00:11:33,143
gigantic, big rocks

292
00:11:33,167 --> 00:11:34,890
coming from the volcano,

293
00:11:34,914 --> 00:11:36,452
coming from kilometers,

294
00:11:36,476 --> 00:11:39,836
really, killers, like meteors,

295
00:11:39,860 --> 00:11:41,504
falling from the sky.

296
00:11:41,528 --> 00:11:43,936
Actually, in Ercolano,

297
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:46,754
which is not too far away from here,

298
00:11:46,778 --> 00:11:50,637
in the past, a skeleton of a man
without legs was found,

299
00:11:50,661 --> 00:11:53,532
and close to him
there was a big, gigantic rock

300
00:11:53,556 --> 00:11:55,129
fallen from that volcano.

301
00:11:55,153 --> 00:11:56,954
And then, so people, just imagine,

302
00:11:56,978 --> 00:11:59,023
started to see those rocks coming down,

303
00:11:59,047 --> 00:12:02,002
smoking rocks, hitting the roofs,

304
00:12:02,026 --> 00:12:03,462
making holes in the roofs.

305
00:12:03,486 --> 00:12:05,377
So people started to go away.

306
00:12:05,401 --> 00:12:09,123
They started to do
what you and me would have done,

307
00:12:09,147 --> 00:12:12,254
that is, going back home,
looking for the people we love.

308
00:12:12,842 --> 00:12:14,599
And just, it was panic everywhere.

309
00:12:14,623 --> 00:12:16,639
As a matter of fact,

310
00:12:16,663 --> 00:12:18,809
that was a time when

311
00:12:18,833 --> 00:12:21,157
you would have your life saved.

312
00:12:21,181 --> 00:12:23,570
If you had fled,

313
00:12:23,594 --> 00:12:25,374
if you had gone away from Pompeii,

314
00:12:25,398 --> 00:12:26,874
you could have survived.

315
00:12:26,898 --> 00:12:29,412
Why? Because the lapilli

316
00:12:29,436 --> 00:12:31,702
started to accumulate in the soil

317
00:12:31,726 --> 00:12:35,128
for hours. But after two or three hours,

318
00:12:35,152 --> 00:12:38,800
it was that straight up lapilli,
more or less.

319
00:12:39,570 --> 00:12:42,877
After that time, you couldn't
see anything outside Pompeii.

320
00:12:42,901 --> 00:12:44,230
You couldn't see the roads,

321
00:12:44,254 --> 00:12:46,291
just like when you have a heavy snow.

322
00:12:46,315 --> 00:12:49,286
You couldn't see anything.
So where could you go?

323
00:12:49,310 --> 00:12:51,997
And another thing is that you had
like a fog coming down.

324
00:12:52,462 --> 00:12:53,955
It was actually like a -

325
00:12:53,979 --> 00:12:55,927
imagine a desert storm.

326
00:12:55,951 --> 00:12:58,236
You had like ashes coming down.

327
00:12:58,260 --> 00:12:59,448
You couldn't see

328
00:12:59,472 --> 00:13:01,190
more than one or two meters.

329
00:13:01,214 --> 00:13:03,586
And these ashes were containing

330
00:13:03,610 --> 00:13:05,229
pieces of glass, actually,

331
00:13:05,253 --> 00:13:06,510
that were actually

332
00:13:06,534 --> 00:13:08,917
hurting your windpipe.

333
00:13:08,941 --> 00:13:10,612
So you had to breathe with a cloth

334
00:13:10,636 --> 00:13:12,492
dipped in water.

335
00:13:12,516 --> 00:13:14,367
It was really a nightmare.

336
00:13:14,391 --> 00:13:17,931
So it is normal to think
that people just hid in their houses.

337
00:13:19,144 --> 00:13:20,358
What happened then?

338
00:13:20,382 --> 00:13:22,736
Well, the lapilli started to accumulate.

339
00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:25,343
Once they reached something like a meter,

340
00:13:25,367 --> 00:13:27,834
a cubic meter, there would be

341
00:13:27,858 --> 00:13:31,707
an equivalent of six men as weight.

342
00:13:31,731 --> 00:13:34,191
So you had the roof starting to collapse.

343
00:13:34,215 --> 00:13:39,101
Actually, one-third of the people
found dead in Pompeii died

344
00:13:39,125 --> 00:13:42,542
due to the collapsing
of the roofs or the floors.

345
00:13:42,566 --> 00:13:45,256
Probably you also had
earthquakes in that process.

346
00:13:45,859 --> 00:13:49,734
So people were in the houses,
screaming, asking for help.

347
00:13:49,758 --> 00:13:53,723
No one could see anything; it
was like the end of the world for them.

348
00:13:53,747 --> 00:13:55,344
And that, for twelve hours.

349
00:13:55,368 --> 00:13:59,138
Twelve hours later, say,
at one o'clock in the morning,

350
00:13:59,162 --> 00:14:02,185
let's move and go to Ercolano.

351
00:14:02,209 --> 00:14:03,617
Ercolano is another town,

352
00:14:03,641 --> 00:14:05,748
very close to the sea,

353
00:14:05,772 --> 00:14:07,383
between the sea and the volcano,

354
00:14:07,407 --> 00:14:09,952
which is about six kilometers
away from the volcano;

355
00:14:09,976 --> 00:14:12,465
Pompeii is about eight kilometers away.

356
00:14:12,489 --> 00:14:14,428
So when archaeologists started to dig

357
00:14:14,452 --> 00:14:17,637
through the strata in Ercolano,

358
00:14:17,661 --> 00:14:19,962
they couldn't find dead people,

359
00:14:19,986 --> 00:14:21,733
only a few scattered skeletons.

360
00:14:21,757 --> 00:14:26,564
So everyone thought
that the inhabitants of Ercolano

361
00:14:26,588 --> 00:14:28,649
had escaped somewhere.

362
00:14:28,673 --> 00:14:30,771
They had actually managed to survive.

363
00:14:30,795 --> 00:14:32,818
But once the archaeologists

364
00:14:32,842 --> 00:14:34,225
reached the beach

365
00:14:34,249 --> 00:14:37,128
and got to the arches, the arcade

366
00:14:37,152 --> 00:14:39,157
where, usually, the fishing boats

367
00:14:39,181 --> 00:14:41,402
were parked, just like [in] a garage,

368
00:14:41,426 --> 00:14:43,709
they found three hundred skeletons.

369
00:14:43,733 --> 00:14:45,657
They all died in a single moment.

370
00:14:45,681 --> 00:14:47,637
When you see those skeletons,

371
00:14:47,661 --> 00:14:49,776
you realize something: they all died

372
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,645
without defending themselves.

373
00:14:52,669 --> 00:14:53,939
It's just as if something

374
00:14:53,963 --> 00:14:56,724
had unplugged life from their bodies.

375
00:14:56,748 --> 00:14:58,055
Just, boom!

376
00:14:58,079 --> 00:14:59,807
And what happened,

377
00:14:59,831 --> 00:15:02,157
and the vulcanologists will tell you that,

378
00:15:02,181 --> 00:15:05,027
is that the gigantic column

379
00:15:05,051 --> 00:15:06,780
going up in the sky,

380
00:15:06,804 --> 00:15:09,513
at a certain time, couldn't stand,

381
00:15:09,537 --> 00:15:11,765
and it sat on itself,

382
00:15:11,789 --> 00:15:13,157
it just went down

383
00:15:13,181 --> 00:15:15,459
and transformed itself

384
00:15:15,483 --> 00:15:17,326
into deadly avalanches

385
00:15:17,350 --> 00:15:20,121
made of gas and ashes,

386
00:15:20,145 --> 00:15:22,877
coming down at a speed of

387
00:15:22,901 --> 00:15:24,692
one hundred kilometers per hour,

388
00:15:24,716 --> 00:15:28,041
with a, let's say, a heat of between

389
00:15:28,065 --> 00:15:30,527
five and six hundred degrees Celsius.

390
00:15:30,551 --> 00:15:33,256
So, that killed the people instantly.

391
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,318
If you want to think what happened,

392
00:15:35,342 --> 00:15:38,547
just imagine being on the shore

393
00:15:38,571 --> 00:15:40,152
and watching in the night

394
00:15:40,176 --> 00:15:42,137
the volcano, the red part,

395
00:15:42,161 --> 00:15:45,137
let's say, of the eruption,

396
00:15:45,161 --> 00:15:47,470
was instantly being covered by

397
00:15:47,494 --> 00:15:49,254
that avalanche that's coming down.

398
00:15:49,278 --> 00:15:51,296
You couldn't see anything.

399
00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:54,372
But, you know, vulcanologists
would tell you,

400
00:15:54,396 --> 00:15:57,773
well, maybe you could see some flare,

401
00:15:57,797 --> 00:16:04,361
something like a flock
of red-hot bats coming toward you.

402
00:16:04,859 --> 00:16:07,001
And people were instantly killed.

403
00:16:07,025 --> 00:16:08,578
The fact that you have the bone

404
00:16:08,602 --> 00:16:11,169
in contact with the ash layers

405
00:16:11,193 --> 00:16:15,859
means that skin, organs, muscles

406
00:16:15,883 --> 00:16:20,668
got vaporized in a matter
of a few seconds.

407
00:16:20,692 --> 00:16:22,300
So people died violently.

408
00:16:22,324 --> 00:16:23,976
Let's go back to Pompeii.

409
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:25,201
It's morning.

410
00:16:25,225 --> 00:16:27,632
People hear that things are changing.

411
00:16:27,656 --> 00:16:31,175
Probably you don't have
the rain of lapilli anymore.

412
00:16:31,199 --> 00:16:35,416
So they want to go away,
but you have so many lapilli,

413
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:37,135
it's impossible to open the door.

414
00:16:37,159 --> 00:16:39,491
So, actually, people
go outside from the roofs,

415
00:16:39,515 --> 00:16:41,296
and they start to run away.

416
00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:42,759
But at that time,

417
00:16:42,783 --> 00:16:45,529
the volcano does the same thing again,

418
00:16:45,553 --> 00:16:48,545
sits on himself and transforms his column

419
00:16:48,569 --> 00:16:51,394
on those deadly avalanches of gas.

420
00:16:51,418 --> 00:16:54,990
The first one stops
right at the suburbia of Pompeii.

421
00:16:55,014 --> 00:16:57,437
The second one kills anyone on the street.

422
00:16:57,461 --> 00:17:02,996
And that's what you see, those people,
in those glass frameworks.

423
00:17:03,020 --> 00:17:05,304
These are the people
killed in that moment.

424
00:17:05,328 --> 00:17:07,361
And the third one would come again

425
00:17:07,385 --> 00:17:09,190
and break down walls,

426
00:17:09,214 --> 00:17:12,292
open the roof and kill people inside.

427
00:17:12,316 --> 00:17:13,769
And then there is another one,

428
00:17:13,793 --> 00:17:16,205
the last one, that is so powerful,

429
00:17:16,229 --> 00:17:17,568
it goes all the way,

430
00:17:17,592 --> 00:17:20,181
even at thirty kilometers away

431
00:17:20,205 --> 00:17:22,046
and Pliny the Younger,

432
00:17:22,070 --> 00:17:23,996
the one that wrote that letter,

433
00:17:24,020 --> 00:17:26,823
was almost afraid to die.

434
00:17:26,847 --> 00:17:29,958
He was staying at thirty kilometers away.

435
00:17:29,982 --> 00:17:32,805
So this is what happened,
exactly, in Pompeii.

436
00:17:33,694 --> 00:17:35,745
So what you see today

437
00:17:35,769 --> 00:17:39,310
is a place that probably
doesn't tell you much

438
00:17:39,334 --> 00:17:43,844
about these problems,
this atmosphere that happened.

439
00:17:43,868 --> 00:17:47,510
But when you find yourself
in front of one of those bodies

440
00:17:47,534 --> 00:17:50,074
inside the glass frame,

441
00:17:50,098 --> 00:17:52,325
just remember that these are not statues.

442
00:17:52,349 --> 00:17:55,430
These are not petrified people.

443
00:17:55,454 --> 00:17:58,346
These are people in the process of dying,

444
00:17:58,370 --> 00:18:01,001
in that intimate moment of their life.

445
00:18:01,025 --> 00:18:03,989
And we, I guess, should pay respect
to them every time.

446
00:18:04,013 --> 00:18:05,192
Thank you.

447
00:18:05,216 --> 00:18:09,695
(Applause)