Study Abroad Journal May 17

A day in Pompeii, which made me more sad than I thought that I would be.  I knew that this city had been destroyed by a massive catastrophe, I knew that everything about their daily life was there to be seen and yet, seeing it was incredibly humbling.  I mean they 

May 17, 2014.  Pompeii's amphitheater.  I chose this work of architecture because it shows an amphitheater that needed mounds of dirt to support it, had only one entrance and exit and shows how people had to enter and then walk down to their assigned seats.  This is an examples of most Roman amphitheaters and illustrative of how progressive the Colosseum was.

had just been going about their business, they were having elections, they were recovering from a previous earthquake and they didn’t know that this was coming.  Everyone believes that their home is safe until it isn’t.  I mean I live in Michigan and think that a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami isn’t going to hit me here, but we have tornados and floods and blizzards.  I mean, there is nowhere that is 100% safe on this earth.  So, why does this place

May 17, 2014.  Taberna in Pompeii.  This is a cafe/bar where hot and cold food were served out of the embedded pots seen in the picture.  You were able to get food and drinks here.  This picture shows how every shop, house, place in Pompeii and therefore ancient Rome was painted with very bright, vivid colors.

feel more sad than the devastation I have seen in Haiti, China, Japan, etc after natural disasters?  And the answer is, I’m not sure. 

John said something the other day about death on a massive scale being something that is awe-striking and that sits with you forever, like Auswitch, like the Leningrad mass graves, like Pompeii.  This was probably the worst scene of devastation and loss of life that I have ever been to with the exception of Civil War battlefields.  And a battlefield now looks like a beautiful meadow that you have to

May 17, 2014.  Clandestine picture of the House of the Painters at Work, which was closed to visitors, but able to be seen from the bathrooms from above.  This house is decorated in the fourth style frescoes that are incomplete because the painters were working on these frescoes when Vesuvius erupted.  Their work utensils including pots of paint were found in the house and frescoes were unfinished.

imagine the carnage and horror on to.  At Pompeii, the carnage and horror is still present in their homes being intact.  Imagine if you went to Gettysburg and every house that belonged to every soldier who died there was present with their families in them and devastated by the battle?  It truly boggles the mind.  Because this is just the Gettysburg of Vesuvius and there is also a Manassas, Bull Run, and Wilderness battlefields in other little pockets around this mountain.