When people think of Naples three things probably pop up; the mafia, pizza, and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (also the name of my favourite pizza) in 79AD, giving rise to the famously preserved Roman ruins of pompeii and Herculaneum. The catastrophic eruption killed thousands of people in the Roman settlements, where they were obliterated and buried underneath pyroclastic flows and ash falls. The cities, and their people, became frozen in time. So of course, one of my days in Naples I took a day drip out to visit the two sites with a group of people I met from the hostel.
At least three hundred skeletons of men, women and children have been discovered huddled together in the twelve boathouses facing the sea. These people were killed from thermal shock, where unlike in Pompeii, 500 degree temperatures vaporized their flesh, shattered their bones and teeth and boiled their brains. Some them even showed holes in their skulls, where their heads exploded. It was quite confronting.
As something you learn about in school, it was surreal actually walking through the two sites. Although refusing to pay for an audio guide, I realised I really need to work on my Roman history oops