WEBVTT

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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.

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I mean, you still have wine.

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But as the wine goes up in the neck,
it transforms itself into foam.

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And that's exactly what that volcano did.

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The magma in the magmatic chamber

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was magma, but as it came up,

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it was just like a foam,

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solidified foam, that turned out

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to be those lapilli falling.

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So people started just to see,

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to hear that, those pieces of rock,

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very small and very light,

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hitting the tiles.

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But they were not the killers.

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So, I asked myself,

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"Why didn't the people go away?"

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Well, if you go and see

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the strata of the lapilli,

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you will see, you find rocks that big,

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gigantic, big rocks

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coming from the volcano,

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coming from kilometers,

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really, killers, like meteors,

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falling from the sky.

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Actually, in Ercolano,

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which is not too far away from here,

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in the past, a skeleton of a man
without legs was found,

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and close to him
there was a big, gigantic rock

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fallen from that volcano.

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And then, so people, just imagine,

00:11:56.978 --> 00:11:59.023
started to see those rocks coming down,

00:11:59.047 --> 00:12:02.002
smoking rocks, hitting the roofs,

00:12:02.026 --> 00:12:03.462
making holes in the roofs.

00:12:03.486 --> 00:12:05.377
So people started to go away.

00:12:05.401 --> 00:12:09.123
They started to do
what you and me would have done,

00:12:09.147 --> 00:12:12.254
that is, going back home,
looking for the people we love.

00:12:12.842 --> 00:12:14.599
And just, it was panic everywhere.

00:12:14.623 --> 00:12:16.639
As a matter of fact,

00:12:16.663 --> 00:12:18.809
that was a time when

00:12:18.833 --> 00:12:21.157
you would have your life saved.

00:12:21.181 --> 00:12:23.570
If you had fled,

00:12:23.594 --> 00:12:25.374
if you had gone away from Pompeii,

00:12:25.398 --> 00:12:26.874
you could have survived.

00:12:26.898 --> 00:12:29.412
Why? Because the lapilli

00:12:29.436 --> 00:12:31.702
started to accumulate in the soil

00:12:31.726 --> 00:12:35.128
for hours. But after two or three hours,

00:12:35.152 --> 00:12:38.800
it was that straight up lapilli,
more or less.

00:12:39.570 --> 00:12:42.877
After that time, you couldn't
see anything outside Pompeii.

00:12:42.901 --> 00:12:44.230
You couldn't see the roads,

00:12:44.254 --> 00:12:46.291
just like when you have a heavy snow.

00:12:46.315 --> 00:12:49.286
You couldn't see anything.
So where could you go?

00:12:49.310 --> 00:12:51.997
And another thing is that you had
like a fog coming down.

00:12:52.462 --> 00:12:53.955
It was actually like a -

00:12:53.979 --> 00:12:55.927
imagine a desert storm.

00:12:55.951 --> 00:12:58.236
You had like ashes coming down.

00:12:58.260 --> 00:12:59.448
You couldn't see

00:12:59.472 --> 00:13:01.190
more than one or two meters.

00:13:01.214 --> 00:13:03.586
And these ashes were containing

00:13:03.610 --> 00:13:05.229
pieces of glass, actually,

00:13:05.253 --> 00:13:06.510
that were actually

00:13:06.534 --> 00:13:08.917
hurting your windpipe.

00:13:08.941 --> 00:13:10.612
So you had to breathe with a cloth

00:13:10.636 --> 00:13:12.492
dipped in water.

00:13:12.516 --> 00:13:14.367
It was really a nightmare.

00:13:14.391 --> 00:13:17.931
So it is normal to think
that people just hid in their houses.

00:13:19.144 --> 00:13:20.358
What happened then?

00:13:20.382 --> 00:13:22.736
Well, the lapilli started to accumulate.

00:13:22.760 --> 00:13:25.343
Once they reached something like a meter,

00:13:25.367 --> 00:13:27.834
a cubic meter, there would be

00:13:27.858 --> 00:13:31.707
an equivalent of six men as weight.

00:13:31.731 --> 00:13:34.191
So you had the roof starting to collapse.

00:13:34.215 --> 00:13:39.101
Actually, one-third of the people
found dead in Pompeii died

00:13:39.125 --> 00:13:42.542
due to the collapsing
of the roofs or the floors.

00:13:42.566 --> 00:13:45.256
Probably you also had
earthquakes in that process.

00:13:45.859 --> 00:13:49.734
So people were in the houses,
screaming, asking for help.

00:13:49.758 --> 00:13:53.723
No one could see anything; it
was like the end of the world for them.

00:13:53.747 --> 00:13:55.344
And that, for twelve hours.

00:13:55.368 --> 00:13:59.138
Twelve hours later, say,
at one o'clock in the morning,

00:13:59.162 --> 00:14:02.185
let's move and go to Ercolano.

00:14:02.209 --> 00:14:03.617
Ercolano is another town,

00:14:03.641 --> 00:14:05.748
very close to the sea,

00:14:05.772 --> 00:14:07.383
between the sea and the volcano,

00:14:07.407 --> 00:14:09.952
which is about six kilometers
away from the volcano;

00:14:09.976 --> 00:14:12.465
Pompeii is about eight kilometers away.

00:14:12.489 --> 00:14:14.428
So when archaeologists started to dig

00:14:14.452 --> 00:14:17.637
through the strata in Ercolano,

00:14:17.661 --> 00:14:19.962
they couldn't find dead people,

00:14:19.986 --> 00:14:21.733
only a few scattered skeletons.

00:14:21.757 --> 00:14:26.564
So everyone thought
that the inhabitants of Ercolano

00:14:26.588 --> 00:14:28.649
had escaped somewhere.

00:14:28.673 --> 00:14:30.771
They had actually managed to survive.

00:14:30.795 --> 00:14:32.818
But once the archaeologists

00:14:32.842 --> 00:14:34.225
reached the beach

00:14:34.249 --> 00:14:37.128
and got to the arches, the arcade

00:14:37.152 --> 00:14:39.157
where, usually, the fishing boats

00:14:39.181 --> 00:14:41.402
were parked, just like [in] a garage,

00:14:41.426 --> 00:14:43.709
they found three hundred skeletons.

00:14:43.733 --> 00:14:45.657
They all died in a single moment.

00:14:45.681 --> 00:14:47.637
When you see those skeletons,

00:14:47.661 --> 00:14:49.776
you realize something: they all died

00:14:49.800 --> 00:14:52.645
without defending themselves.

00:14:52.669 --> 00:14:53.939
It's just as if something

00:14:53.963 --> 00:14:56.724
had unplugged life from their bodies.

00:14:56.748 --> 00:14:58.055
Just, boom!

00:14:58.079 --> 00:14:59.807
And what happened,

00:14:59.831 --> 00:15:02.157
and the vulcanologists will tell you that,

00:15:02.181 --> 00:15:05.027
is that the gigantic column

00:15:05.051 --> 00:15:06.780
going up in the sky,

00:15:06.804 --> 00:15:09.513
at a certain time, couldn't stand,

00:15:09.537 --> 00:15:11.765
and it sat on itself,

00:15:11.789 --> 00:15:13.157
it just went down

00:15:13.181 --> 00:15:15.459
and transformed itself

00:15:15.483 --> 00:15:17.326
into deadly avalanches

00:15:17.350 --> 00:15:20.121
made of gas and ashes,

00:15:20.145 --> 00:15:22.877
coming down at a speed of

00:15:22.901 --> 00:15:24.692
one hundred kilometers per hour,

00:15:24.716 --> 00:15:28.041
with a, let's say, a heat of between

00:15:28.065 --> 00:15:30.527
five and six hundred degrees Celsius.

00:15:30.551 --> 00:15:33.256
So, that killed the people instantly.

00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:35.318
If you want to think what happened,

00:15:35.342 --> 00:15:38.547
just imagine being on the shore

00:15:38.571 --> 00:15:40.152
and watching in the night

00:15:40.176 --> 00:15:42.137
the volcano, the red part,

00:15:42.161 --> 00:15:45.137
let's say, of the eruption,

00:15:45.161 --> 00:15:47.470
was instantly being covered by

00:15:47.494 --> 00:15:49.254
that avalanche that's coming down.

00:15:49.278 --> 00:15:51.296
You couldn't see anything.

00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:54.372
But, you know, vulcanologists
would tell you,

00:15:54.396 --> 00:15:57.773
well, maybe you could see some flare,

00:15:57.797 --> 00:16:04.361
something like a flock
of red-hot bats coming toward you.

00:16:04.859 --> 00:16:07.001
And people were instantly killed.

00:16:07.025 --> 00:16:08.578
The fact that you have the bone

00:16:08.602 --> 00:16:11.169
in contact with the ash layers

00:16:11.193 --> 00:16:15.859
means that skin, organs, muscles

00:16:15.883 --> 00:16:20.668
got vaporized in a matter
of a few seconds.

00:16:20.692 --> 00:16:22.300
So people died violently.

00:16:22.324 --> 00:16:23.976
Let's go back to Pompeii.

00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:25.201
It's morning.

00:16:25.225 --> 00:16:27.632
People hear that things are changing.

00:16:27.656 --> 00:16:31.175
Probably you don't have
the rain of lapilli anymore.

00:16:31.199 --> 00:16:35.416
So they want to go away,
but you have so many lapilli,

00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:37.135
it's impossible to open the door.

00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:39.491
So, actually, people
go outside from the roofs,

00:16:39.515 --> 00:16:41.296
and they start to run away.

00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:42.759
But at that time,

00:16:42.783 --> 00:16:45.529
the volcano does the same thing again,

00:16:45.553 --> 00:16:48.545
sits on himself and transforms his column

00:16:48.569 --> 00:16:51.394
on those deadly avalanches of gas.

00:16:51.418 --> 00:16:54.990
The first one stops
right at the suburbia of Pompeii.

00:16:55.014 --> 00:16:57.437
The second one kills anyone on the street.

00:16:57.461 --> 00:17:02.996
And that's what you see, those people,
in those glass frameworks.

00:17:03.020 --> 00:17:05.304
These are the people
killed in that moment.

00:17:05.328 --> 00:17:07.361
And the third one would come again

00:17:07.385 --> 00:17:09.190
and break down walls,

00:17:09.214 --> 00:17:12.292
open the roof and kill people inside.

00:17:12.316 --> 00:17:13.769
And then there is another one,

00:17:13.793 --> 00:17:16.205
the last one, that is so powerful,

00:17:16.229 --> 00:17:17.568
it goes all the way,

00:17:17.592 --> 00:17:20.181
even at thirty kilometers away

00:17:20.205 --> 00:17:22.046
and Pliny the Younger,

00:17:22.070 --> 00:17:23.996
the one that wrote that letter,

00:17:24.020 --> 00:17:26.823
was almost afraid to die.

00:17:26.847 --> 00:17:29.958
He was staying at thirty kilometers away.

00:17:29.982 --> 00:17:32.805
So this is what happened,
exactly, in Pompeii.

00:17:33.694 --> 00:17:35.745
So what you see today

00:17:35.769 --> 00:17:39.310
is a place that probably
doesn't tell you much

00:17:39.334 --> 00:17:43.844
about these problems,
this atmosphere that happened.

00:17:43.868 --> 00:17:47.510
But when you find yourself
in front of one of those bodies

00:17:47.534 --> 00:17:50.074
inside the glass frame,

00:17:50.098 --> 00:17:52.325
just remember that these are not statues.

00:17:52.349 --> 00:17:55.430
These are not petrified people.

00:17:55.454 --> 00:17:58.346
These are people in the process of dying,

00:17:58.370 --> 00:18:01.001
in that intimate moment of their life.

00:18:01.025 --> 00:18:03.989
And we, I guess, should pay respect
to them every time.

00:18:04.013 --> 00:18:05.192
Thank you.

00:18:05.216 --> 00:18:09.695
(Applause)