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Pompeii's frozen victims on display. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8599122.stm?ls
In addition to making plaster molds of humans, archaeologists have also made molds of plant roots. This has allowed them to recreate the types of crops and orchards grown in the city. Although they don't give evidence to the emotional tragedy of the blast, they actually might be more valuable to historians than the human molds.
Pompeii is on my to visit list of places to see. I dont particularly care to see the human remains (ie bodies or casts of bodies) so much as just see the town and try to get a better understanding of how people lived in AD 79. I am fascinated walking through ancient European places, it gives me a greater appreciation for my heritage. To be honest, on a personal level I could care less about the heritage of others except where it impacts my own.
Not to play armchair scientist here, but how would the bodies have remained intact if they were killed instantly by heat? I would presume that the people would have combusted if the heat were so great, and their burning flesh would not have left a defined mold for excavators to make casts with. Yet, the casts we have today show that the molds created by the cavities where human and animal bodies had once been are quite well-defined. Perhaps there is an explanation that I am unaware of. See the story here:
The people of Pompeii who died when Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago were killed by intense heat rather than suffocation, according to a new study.
This nu?e ardente or pyroclastic flow isn't a kind of fireball but more a fast-moving current of extremely hot gas (which can reach temperatures of about 1,000 ?C) and rock, which travel away from the volcano at speeds generally as great as 700 km/h. In Pompei, people didn't burn as if they were in a fire pit but "by intense heat".http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074spx http://www.exponent.com/scalds_burn_injuries/#tab_overview http://ep.physoc.org/content/32/1/67.short About archaeology:http://www.youtube.com/user/360Production#p/u/2/P9ai44gkxAw
Alright, I guess it may be possible to get that hot without actually catching on fire, which was my initial concern. Still, it's kind of strange. The positions of the bodies seems to suggest suffocation to me, rather than intense heat.
Alright, I guess it may be possible to get that hot without actually catching on fire, which was my initial concern. Still, it's kind of strange. The positions of the bodies seems to suggest suffocation to me, rather than intense heat.
Probably because intense heat may produce a lack of available oxygen, and also considering chemical components of that kind of flow.
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