TV Recommendation: Bettany Hughes' Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead.

 I recently watched Bettany Hughes’ documentary which focused on the victims of the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD (the documentary is currently on my5 and was broadcast on Thursday the 28th October). As a big fan of her documentaries, I was intrigued to see what this documentary would entail. I have watched many of Bettany’s programmes, including the various ancient Egypt documentaries, as well as ones including Ancient Greece, and lastly Rome/Pompeii and they have all been equally fascinating/interesting.

            The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD has been coined as ‘one of the deadliest eruptions in Europe’. Many of Pompeii, Oplontis, and Stabiae’s inhabitants were buried under ash, whilst Lapilli and Herculaneum were buried under a mudflow (taken from here). Furthermore, an article written by Jessica Ball stated that the eruption killed more than 16,000 people due to the ash, mud, and rocks that rained down on the city and its surrounding areas (taken from here). The Vesuvius eruption resulted in scientists describing it as 'Plinian', this was due to Pliny the Younger, a Roman historian who saw the eruption and wrote the 'oldest surviving description of the tall, tree-shaped cloud that rose above the volcano' (also found here)

    This map depicts the 'Campanian volcanic arc', which consists of a number of active, dormant, and extinct volcanoes in the Campania region of Italy. Jessica Ball described that these volcanoes are 'formed over a subduction zone created by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates', where the zone stretches along a large area and 'is the source of other volcanoes like Mount Etna, the Phlegraean Fields (Campi Flegrei), Vulcano, and Stromboli. 

            Bettany told the story of five of the many victims who perished under the eruption of Mount Vesuvius by piecing together what they did for a living, and how they died which was clearly depicted in the plaster cast shells of the individuals.  This included a young boy, a soldier, a slave, a caretaker, a 20-year-old pregnant woman, and the foetal remains of her baby, as well as plaster casts of horses. She showed the plaster cast remains of these people, and heartbreakingly one of the victims from Herculaneum was a mother-to-be who was eight months pregnant at the time of her death. On the skull of the pregnant woman, the heat from the volcano melted an iron hairpiece, which preserved part of her hair underneath. Hughes also stated that this woman suffered from a severe case of headlice which could be seen by the damage to her skull. Furthermore, Bettany showed where the caretaker would have lived, and all that was left behind was the remains of a femur. Another one of the victims was a young boy, with an x-ray of the cast viewers were able to see that the child was wearing a toga tied up at the back. You could see from the scan that the child suffered due to the placement of said toga. Furthermore, Bettany also stated that archaeologists had found the 'missing victims of Herculaneum' who were found to be 'hugging' each other for protection, sheltering from the eruption, and waiting to escape by sea. Some of these remains were presented to Bettany by Professor Luigi Capasso. 

    Bettany was shown the foetal remains of the baby as noted above by Professor Capasso, which is something that will stay with me for a long time. I have tried to find articles with information on said baby, but I have not found anything. Most articles seem to have commented on the mother-to-be, which of course is important. But the heartbreak of seeing that small child's remains is something that also needs to be written about. 

If you’re interested in watching the documentary, I have attached it here. I was fascinated by this documentary, the way Bettany told these stories made you want to delve deeper and find out more, Christopher Stevens from the Daily Mail stated that ‘She helped us see those familiar plaster casts of the volcano’s victims not as museum pieces, but as completely human’ (taken from here) which is exactly true. Rather than just facts and figures, Bettany made this documentary into something that was quite intimate, and full of respect for those that had died during this awful tragedy. 

 

This image taken from here shows Vesuvius from Naples at sunset. 

Bibliography

Bettany Hughes, 'Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead', https://www.my5.tv/show/pompeii-secrets-of-the-dead 

Christopher Steven’s Review: ‘A terrified child, a mum-to-be… Pompeii victims come back to life’, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10143051/CHRISTOPHER-STEVENS-TV-terrified-child-mum-Pompeii-victims-come-life.html

Jessica Ball, 'Mount Vesuvius - Italy', https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/

2.  ‘Vesuivius’, https://www.britannica.com/place/Vesuvius

VeVesuvius from Naples at Sunset',  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vesuvius_from_Naples_at_sunset.jpg