79 AD: Uncovering The Ancient Remains Of Pompeii’s Victims | Lost World of Pompeii

Buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, this city provides a unique glimpse into Roman life. But one day Vesuvius will erupt again, and scientists are racing against time and using advanced technology to uncover and preserve its mysteries before it’s too late. From plaster casts of victims to 3D models of the city, discover the incredible efforts to solve Pompeii’s lingering riddles and protect its legacy.

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Pompei buried by Mount Vesuvius this city was Frozen in Time providing us with a shocking window into the Lost World of the Romans but that window May close before all her secrets are revealed as Pompei comes under threat from all sides today the greatest mystery may be is the same force that conquered Pompei the first time rumbling back to life really worried that we’ll actually be here the next time it arups these walls they were never meant to withstand all that they’ve been through the threats are very real now experts are trying to solve the lingering riddles before it’s too late as they fan out across the site and use the latest technology and scientific detective work to uncover what Pompei was like on the eve of its destruction we went to know who were these people and who we the last moment of their Liv it’s the year 79 ad the people in the Roman town of Pompei are going about their business shoppers out in the streets pick up their daily supplies at Home People prepare for their day ahead slaves work away in the city’s food industry the bars are noisy and bustling and Gladiators are preparing for battle but this day would change these people’s lives forever high above the city looms Mount fuus one of the most dangerous volcanoes on Earth few realize that for many of them they have just one day left to live [Music] a glowing cloud of volcanic gas and debris begins to roll down the slopes of Mount vvus smoke and Ash debris started to fall on Pompei they probably had no idea exactly what was happening as the day progressed more and more debris fell and so this blocked doorways walls collapsed roofs collapsed and so people got stuck in their homes died that way there were six surges of hot gas that flowed down and instantly killed with the heat whoever was left it took just 18 hours for Pompei to be buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash and pmus an entire living city wiped out thousands of its people buried alive the superheated air burns their lungs and melts their muscles their twisted and contorted bodies were quickly buried in Ash when they finally decomposed their bodies left voids in the ground after the decomposition of the body when the internal organs disappear they keep it this empty space de form just steal the bones because the bones are very resistant to the disc composition long ago archaeologists realized that if they filled these voids with plaster the body’s shapes could be revealed the casts they made have captivated the world Pompei is unique and showing the emotions of people and their death throws and giving us a real human element that we don’t get anywhere else and I think that’s what makes people fascinated by Pompei and we see them right in the context of their living spaces as they’re hiding or they’re trying to leave or they’re rescuing their children but many Mysteries remain about exactly how these people died a team of scientists is now studying 15 bodies that were found together in the east of the city the odd positions these bodies were found in intrigues team leader Lawrence alapon it’s very interesting how they found the bodies because we find several groups together three people together four people together it seems that they they may be helping each other and we want to know what’s happened exactly with these people so who were they and what were their final moments like using the latest and high technology science May finally be on the cusp of solving this 200-year-old puzzle to do so they’re scanning the casts in more more detail than ever before taking high resolution photographs and then X-rays of their bones locked inside we can see the teeth we know the teeth we can see about the diet we can know the sex because we can see very well the morphology of the pelvis we can know the age because for the growing of the bone one cast is particularly well preserved Lawrence has already unlocked person details of this man’s life we know that he was uh between 25 30 years old this young man also had a military sword which leads Lawrence to think he was a soldier but he’s hoping to find out much more he’s taking the data back to his lab in Valencia Spain to try to put a face to him we want to know that the last moment of this person if he suffer or he was afraid and all this we can see in this pH the well preserved sections of the cast are copied and then filled into other sections that are less detailed in this part we can see the complete side of the cast so we have to take the complete part for make what part is not complete or is missing the nose is not complete at the end but we have the WID of the nose so with this reference we can know how long and which form was the nose so we use what we have for complete what we have not the result is an image that is moving and strikingly lifelike of the young soldier who was buried 2,000 years ago when we see the face we understand a lot of things immediately the nose the mouth everything was a people that from the south of Italy or the north of Africa you give the human aspect you will feel like U that you are living the last moments of these people Lawrence has figured out what the man looked like his occupation and age but unfortunately the bigger Mysteries remain what were is and the other victim’s final moments like what was Pompei really like on the day it was covered in Ash since it can’t be solved here it falls to other scientists documenting the site but they’re aware that time is running [Music] out Wind and Rain 3 million people annually who come through Pompei these are the things that chip away at the site part of the threat is the numbers of people here the record numbers that we get into pompe the constant leaning up against walls and scraping against walls people picking things off all these are issues serve as a as a very real threat to the preservation of Pompei centuries of exposure to the elements mean that this city is also coming under threat from potential landslides one major Landslide could bury the delicate buildings of Pompei before all her secrets are revealed these walls they were never meant to withstand all that they’ve been through so we need to find new ways and new ideas for for preserving those architectures they will fall down but the deadliest danger still Waits on the horizon the threat of Mount vvus is a very real threat although we stand here in the shadow of the mountain trying to figure out what happened on that day we’re all really worried that we’ll actually be here the next time it erupts has been described as being one of the most dangerous volcanoes in Earth because of the large population in the immediate vicinity of volcano there’s a very high chance of severe destruction and of course High numbers of casualties in the wake of these new threats scientists are now embarking on an ambitious plan to create the first ever 3D model of Pompei all its major buildings monuments and homes to create a virtual copy of the city that will last forever this Monumental task is being carried out by architect Raphael Martinelli and his team they’re documenting over 2,000 buildings and miles of intricate roads from the ancient Forum in the west to Lavish Villas in the North and the Magnificent Amphitheater in the east of the city the 3D model is important as it allows us to see the location and current situation as it is now it’s the first time that such an extended and complete digitalization of the whole site has been created Raphael’s goal is to document every inch of this 66 hectare site and help answer Unsolved Mysteries from how the Romans lived and interacted to what different areas of the city can tell us about their final hours we can compare what we are finding and it helps us see the changes in the buildings over time and it allows us to plan new repairs to the buildings we’re working on and help in their preservation and maintenance Raphael and his team begin by using a state-of-the art highresolution laser [Music] scanner this machine measures a lot more than a million individual points in a second it means we get very detailed information of the buildings we are scanning today they’re mapping the thermal baths in a building on the southern edge of the city called the house of menander it’s one of the richest houses in all of Pompei today we are working in the bathroom area as they scan surprising new details come to life details long hidden from casual view the team is surprised to discover how comfy a 2,000-year-old bathroom could be if you had the money this house has its own small thermal bath and although it’s ordinary for us this house had hot running water once the data is loaded onto their high-powered computers Raphael can manipulate any of the buildings and monuments that they’ve scanned we are getting data about every single wall in the city and eventually the whole site by combining the work of the scanner and the computer program the data then gives us a lifelike 3D model then we add a color layer which is taken from photographs of the buildings ultimately Raphael and his team will provide a complete 3D model of the city as it is today before further damage is done it means future Generations will be able to use this as a start point to see what Pompei might have looked like in the first century from the lavish Villas to the corner bars from the amphitheater to the Magnificent Forum of course none of this would be possible without the huge leaps in technology in recent years it’s revolutionizing the work in the field for pompei’s scientists and archaeologists well one way that technology is really helping us to to understand the city as archaeologists is through having uh tools like tablet computers so for example the iPad in the past we would come and and be Reliant upon uh notepads and pencils and and having to take all that paper based work back to the home institutions to them be digitized and processed and and thought about the Advent of tablet technology and also the cloud has helped us to to bring those computer databases bring all that wealth of information that was typically confined to our offices and our libraries and our museums and bring it to the trench to the trench side so we’re now able to excavate trenches here with with our hands on the technology which not only helps us to to record in completely different ways but also to be able to access access that information as well so it is it is wholly revolutionized the way we we studi the past but state-of-the-art technology is not only helping the work of the scientists at Pompei in some cases it’s even challenging their preconceptions the quadr porticus in the south of the city this sprawling building has long been thought of as a gladiator barracks and that’s still what many tourists search told when they visit Pompei Professor Eric palor from the University of Massachusetts has been working this site for almost 20 years for some time he’s had his doubts about the real use of the quadr porticus over our four years of research there have been a lot of clues that this building has not been used as a gladiator barracks and not least among these is the fact that the building is elegantly constructed and decorated including the remnants of fine wall paintings even in the latrine now Eric’s turning to new technology to help in his search for the truth about this building he’s using a handheld structure sensor it’s a versatile portable piece of equipment to capture 3D details of the site the personal scanner for us as archaeologists is a really an amazing opportunity whereas before we could take photos we could make a sketch but we could never get a really detailed picture of something now with just a few minutes of time we can not only get the idea that we’re interested in but capture the whole reality around it and that’s revolutionary the structure sensor fires a beam of infrared light at the architecture it’s actually capturing the space as I kind of paint along the wall visually now not only is it capturing the geometry it’s also capturing the imagery so while we’re at the one hand getting the space we’re also getting a sense of the texture as Eric traces his tablet across the entire surface of the building he gets a complete picture not just of what he can see but also what he can’t what we’re seeing here is this hole here in the wall which actually is a major sewer of the city and you begin to see the scanner moving down the corridor picking up more and more of the space the scanner plots the line of the sewer giving Eric Vital Information about how the infrastructure here has been built but crucially without having to excavate there it is let me fill the holes it’s going to use the processor of the of the tablet to find any gaps that I’ve missed that are just small or were little areas that were behind a rock and now I can zoom around in the space of this wall and show you the X-ray View and now we’re back behind the wall and that is where that sewer is right here the structure scanner is documenting how the sewer changes its path in order to accommodate the latrine the addition of this new room and its position within the building helps Eric prove his theory that this was not meant for gladiators coupled with the quality of the decoration discover CED previously Eric believes this place was simply too elaborate for a group of Fighters pay went to a lot of trouble to renovate this building in a grand style in the Years just before the eruption the addition ofine together with the rest of the architecture makes it clear that this was going to be a public space likely a market building it’s not only mysteries of Pomp’s buildings that are being solved another team is battling to unlock the secrets of a forgotten library of ancient Scrolls this is really exciting cuz we are using 21st century technology to read this 2,000 years old texts and trying to virtually unal experts now Wonder Could long lost works of ancient literature be hidden under these charred [Music] remains Pompei was one of the first ancient cities to be uncovered at the dawn of archaeology but despite over 250 years of traditional digging with Spades and shovels there is much that these ruins keep secret now some scientists are turning to the very latest state-of-the-art technology to help solve age-old Mysteries some that have been right in front of our eyes for centuries just 20 m to the West west of Pompei lies its sister city culani it too was buried in Ash in the eruption of [Music] Vesuvius scores of people who failed to heed the warning signs died here centuries later in the mid 1700s treasure hunters came across an extraordinary find what looked like odd lumps of charcoal and burnt logs turned out to be Scrolls of Papyrus archaeologists realized they discovered a vast library of documents one of the greatest ever found in Italy Scholars hoped these may be lost Classics but these relics simply crumbled at the slightest touch now for the first time Cutting Edge technology May finally help unravel their secrets this in my hands is 15 M long but it’s only 5 cm now so we have to virtually unroll it to see the letters inside in groby France in the shadow of the Alps Dr Emanuel Brun has been given exclusive access to the Scrolls they’re using a machine called a synchrotron to attempt to see what’s hidden within there are two challenges one is to get the best images here at the syron and the other is the data analysis try to really unroll it uh virtually um and that makes that is difficult because we are dealing with huge amount of data during a massive Surge from the eruption the delicate Papyrus carbonized so quickly that the scientists believe the inscriptions inside were effectively sealed in to find out the synchrotron produces rays that bombard the Scrolls at close to the speed of [Music] light when they pass through the Papyrus and detect sections that contain ink they’re deflected and leave an image that the scientists can read although state-of-the-art technology it is still an incredibly slow process the ink used in Antiquity was made from smoke residue in density it’s almost identical to the carbonized Papyrus itself but the hope now is that the synchrotron will be able to distinguish between the two we have x-rays that are passing through the sample and we can have like that cross-section of 1/10th of millimeter and thanks to the deviation of the light we can make the difference between the carbonized Papyrus and the carbon based ink tantalite inly some intriguing words and phrases are starting to be revealed so for the moment we have isolated two words which are the English translation is they would fall and they would say that’s the two words that for the moment has been isolated now we can try and see inside and maybe we can discover new text that have been lost 2,000 years ago although a painstaking task once Dakota what will the Scrolls reveal could they be the Diaries of someone writing down their thoughts as the mountain above started to rumble the ambition is for medium-term let’s say 5 to 10 years we think that we might unroll what is possible to unroll and then to isolate the different layers that are glued together and see what is inside the Scrolls as the search continues to to unravel lost secrets from these ancient Scrolls scientific research is being carried out in another part of France to unlock the mysteries of a favorite Roman pastime drinking wine Cedric Duran runs a Vineyard in provance France he uses ancient texts and images to attempt to recreate the wines that would have been served in the bars of Pompei around the time Mount Vesuvius erupted we know in the text that there there were a lot of different wines wine for the common people to drink every day in the in the corner of your house in in town or during your your hard work and when it came to wine with your evening meal Cedric discovered that the pompeians had a very different approach to the way we behave today wine were were drunk between the the meals not with the meals so most of the time they don’t search to uh to associate as we do now wine wine with one [Music] meal the process Cedric and his team used to make the wine is the same as it would have been in ancient times from mosaics fresco and texts they’ve been able to accurately reconstruct a pompeian wine press it also revealed something unusual about the Romans taste in wine as you can see uh this press and this Cellar is um widely open to uh to air to oxygen and the Romans they they used to like this kind of taste oxidation they liked it they they like the taste of an old wine you say Okay sometime you open a bottle you say it’s okay it’s too late for this wine okay the Roman would have say oh [Applause] greets not all drinking was done at home in [Music] Pompei the city had many Street Corner bars archaeologist Dr Sophie Haye spent many years years Excavating the bar of amarantus in the south of the city well this is a typical Roman bar a nice marble top um we have a little display cabinet here for the glasses and the wine that he would be selling um the bar culture I think would have been very Lively uh more of a nighttime activity so when people knock off work around here it’s an area full of Artisans so we have painters we have lamp makers and I think they came in in the evening to unwind gamble perhaps um we find dice in bars so we know that they were playing games gambling was illegal in Pompei but the law wasn’t strictly enforced we know that even children gambled using nuts and upper class Romans gambled sometimes large amounts of money and so gambling was a regular part of life and uh in taverns it would be gambling mainly on dice games for instance or board [Music] games the ancient city of pompe buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 ad is once again under threat now scientists are pouring over Pompei to document every inch of this site to create something never attempted before a complete 3D model as they do surprising Clues to the city’s forgotten past are emerging Professor Eric palor is documenting the city’s Street Network today he’s working on the Via consolare which was in direct line of the volcano’s path and buried deep in Ash now Unearthed it’s revealing surprising details of how this city was organized the streets are a multi-purpose form of infrastructure they both provide a hard service for the the carts to Roll Along they provide sidewalks for the pedestrians to move in and then they create kind of a box-like shape because the water from all the roofs in the city will spill out through the houses pass into the street and then wash out as kind of a great storm draam for the city looking closely at the architecture and layout of these drains Eric has confirmed what the huge Stones across the roads were actually for they kept your feet and toga from getting covered in the muck and grime flowing through the streets it’s so that at each intersection and at important Crossing points in the city you can get from one point to another without having to dip down into the street there might be lots of water there there could be manure and other things another image that hits all visitors to Pompei are the Deep wheel ruts embedded in the streets of the city but Eric’s detailed analysis of the roads here has provided him with other clues that he believes have long gone unnoticed we can see at this intersection how traffic would have moved through Pompei on the right hand side this corner is angled outward to move traffic and let it more easily turn to the right the other side this doesn’t have the same angle so it’s not expecting that traffic to do that we look at this part of the stepping stone we can see where the cartwheel actually shaved off part of the stone but it gets much more interesting when we see this side because not only can we see that the carts are interacting with it kind of great Iron Wheel turning down like this making contact with the stone and then staying in contact spreading this pattern across the face of the stone this can only occur when the cartwheel is turning down like this which means the cart has to be going in this direction and turning off that way this got Eric thinking even though these streets are over 2,000 years old is there some hidden pattern here that might reveal a traffic system that has so far escaped detection there’s 500 places where you can tell by looking carefully at the way the cart wheels would interact interact with the stones that a cart was moving in a particular direction to create that actual pattern of [Music] wear he then crisscrossed the entire city confirming his findings on his tablet slowly he began to notice a pattern emerging you see here we’ve got a Northbound and a southbound right next to each other by recording these tiny details on his tablet Eric created a digital record of all pompe Street movements and it revealed something groundbreaking the entire city had a form of traffic control that had escaped Harden detection for that whole time the first time I took all the data and then pushed the button out came the first map of the traffic system of Pompei than anyone had ever seen what Eric has discovered is a familiar system of one-way streets ancient cities like Pompei are organized in many ways a lot like modern cities today like Manhattan with a grid system the traffic that moves through Modern New York and ancient Pompei had to face the same kinds of intersections Square intersections that Force traffic into certain patterns and not into others and Pompei certainly needed organized [Music] streets although only 12,000 people lived here thousands more traveled into the city as it was home to one of the most important buildings in Pompei the massive [Music] Amphitheater the amphitheater dominates the Eastern edge of the city it’s the most imposing structure left standing in Pompei the amphitheater in Pompei is the oldest one that we know of so the amphitheater which means a double theater was an invention in Italy so the Greeks already had theaters with seating in 180° the idea of the amphitheater or Arena was 360° seating and so from anywhere in the stands you could watch the spectacle in the middle of the Arena Arena itself simply means sand because sand would be put in the center to absorb all the blood and so on from the spectacles and the current work of the scientists here means that a complete picture of this massive structure can now be seen well the amphitheater here compares to to all of the amphitheaters in Italy in that it’s the first stone-built structure of its kind in all of Italy as a 20,000 seat Amphitheater it certainly was more than what was necessary for one single town but it’s certainly uh serving the rest of the regions as a modern generation of experts continue to Fan out and document this site long unnoticed details are coming to light it was a long day and they had all sorts of contests throughout the day in the summer it would be hot but they allowed for that by having awnings that would have been ped out on pulley systems to cover all of the crowd to keep them protected from the Sun and the varying size and shape of the seats revealed there was a strict hierarchy for those who came to watch women and slaves tended to sit further back up into the same so it was very teered depending on one’s class and one’s gender the elites and the town leaders down towards the front but all these groups shared one thing in common their love of the Gladiator games they were the equivalent of the major sporting events that we attend today historians Now understand that gladiatorial combat was more complicated than simply throwing victims to the Lions many of the men involved were very much the sports Heroes of their day archaeologists have discovered evidence of these celebrities still exists on the walls of Pompei hidden away not far from the amphitheater is this tiny 2,000-year-old graffiti experts believe it’s a drawing of a gladiator known as a retiarius he wore a guard on one arm part of his armor was a plate tied to his left shoulder to help protect his head he fought with a net and a trident as other graffiti shows the sworn enemy of the retiarius was the merillo he had a guard on one arm and a single leg guard his face hidden behind a full cover helmet he fought with a short sword and a large Shield [Applause] [Applause] uncovering 2,000-year-old etchings at Pompei has provided vital insight into what went on here during Roman times but state-of-the-art Scientific Technology is helping throw new light on the ancient world of Pompei so far scientists have been able to put a face on some of the victims and brought crumbling Streets back to life but the very walls of this city are now at serious risk of being lost forever these wolves have experienced so much turmoil and upheaval from from being built and experiencing uh uh earthquakes and and and the volcanic eruption that destroyed it right through to having been exposed and then systematically neglected uh and trampled over by tourists over the past 200 years indeed most of the walls that we walk through here have been exposed longer in the modern period than they ever existed in Antiquity and now many of the precious Fresco and wall paintings are deteriorating rapidly Grime from Modern pollution has coated them in film and future Tremors could wipe these fragile images away for good the importance of the frescos is extraordinary they allow us to reconnect with the people who once lived in these very homes that’s one of the most important types of evidence we have from Pompei is wall paintings so while wall paintings have survived in other places uh we just don’t have the amount that there is in Pompei which reflect the artistic interests of people and show scenes of Mythology and so on but more crucially for us precisely reflect the kind of things that occurred in houses and bars and shops and so on early efforts to preserve them with substances like Wax and oil did more harm than good it actually sealed in moisture which over time time has damaged these precious decorations to attempt to save them scientists are turning to Laser Technology the laser is one of the most powerful it has a wavelength of 1,64 nanometers so it’s in the near infrared range of the spectrum so it’s not visible to the eye and uh it has a maximum energy of uh 900 M and a very short p so it’s a very very powerful laser and we have to calibrate it and to choose the minimum and the maximum energy for it to work properly and safely and restorers are developing relatively simple techniques to improve the process sometimes it is very useful to use water to wet the surface this way the colors become brighter and the removal is easier and then the water also cools down the surface and when the laser heits up the water this helps the ejection of The Unwanted material Pompei is one of only a handful of sources of Roman wall decorations on Earth they display astonishing depictions of everyday life and are a wealth of Vital Information for historians thanks to this 21st century technology we also can shed some light on on the habits of the Roman people and to see how they were dressed how their hairstyle was and so it also helps to have new knowledge about the history of these people and of our country it’s a technique that has now brought pompei’s stunning Villa of the Mysteries back to its original Glory the faces are now shining as bright as when they were first painted and as more and more frescos are revealed we learn more about what the Interiors of the homes of Pompei looked [Music] like but scientists aren’t just concentrating on what’s above ground they’re also looking for Clues underground Pompei had a sophisticated plumbing and water system there are over 40 fountains in the city and many of the grand houses had run water but pompei’s gutters and drains can also answer questions about the citizens Lifestyles and what they consumed it may not be the most glamorous investigation at Pompei but if someone doesn’t do it now a wealth of information may be lost forever the latrine deposits in Pompei are great assemblages because you know people maybe indiscriminately throw things down in the latrines or is it it’s a fast way to dispose of some rubbish that I may have been working on in the Kitchen Next Door McKinnon has sifted through tons of ancient garbage looking for Clues but the most revealing might come from animal bones what he’s discovering paints a picture of the final meals of many of Pomp’s doomed citizens there’s lots of information that registers on the bones themselves that tell us about the preparation process and the cooking process today he’s in investigating a set of remains found in a latrine in the house of Marcus lucretius a once lavish house in the center of pompe the remains form the top layer of the latrine so in terms of chronology this waste is from a time not long before the eruption of Mount fuus it has a big concentration of materials that looked like it came from a wealthy Feast it has song bird remains which a delicacy and Antiquity lots of fish sea urch and some shellfish so it’s special the latrine also contains the bones of pigs a widespread commodity in Antiquity but by analyzing the state of their teeth McKinnon can deduce the age of these animals and he spots something startling this particular semblage has the highest concentration of young pigs from Pompei younger pigs under 2 3 months of age would be a delicacy in Pompei the wealthier people were the ones who had the resources to access them this paints a vivid picture of a banquet enjoyed by some of the richest people in town so it’s a chance to impress one’s friends be the Talk of the Town as a clearer picture of the lifestyles of the pompeians emerges it’s the future of the city that is fast becoming the main focus the volcano Mount fuus looms large over the town of Pompei an everpresent threat waiting to erupt all over again and as scientists and archaeologists race against the clock to create a complete 3D model of Pompei they’re now aware of a new danger potentially catastrophic landslides within the city scientists believe that as the rain flows down from vvus it’s starting to move the huge mounds of Earth in the unexcavated areas of the site and will collapse the buildings in monuments that they’re now mapping in a bit to find out if their worst fears might be realized they’re now looking to the heavens started working with the Italian space agency their Cosmos Sky Med satellite allows us to see every little movement of the ground in the unexcavated areas and of the buildings and walls which often fall underneath the heavy rains this system is accompanied by Wireless sensors on the ground which send us a warning for every little movement of the buildings and of the Earth around the satellite keeps track of the signals from the wireless transmitters making a recording every few minutes so that over time scientists will be able to detect the slightest movement of the buildings and of the ground they stand on Pompei is the biggest archaeological site where they are experimenting with these different Technologies we still don’t know what the result will be but it will enhance our knowledge which will help us analyze all the data and then use it for the purposes of preservation but for the scientists working at Pompei rainfall may be the least of their worries the reason this city was stopped in its tracks was the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 ad that all started with Innocent wisps of smoke appearing from the volcano and now the indications are that mount vvus may very well be due to make its presence felt once more because there is the possibility that it will be at least of a modest explosive size it may produce small parastic surges which will affect most of the mountain and consequently the current emergency plan is that as soon as there signs of Reawakening volcano the first step is to evacuate 600,000 people as well as the satellites keeping a close eye on minute movements of the landscape a nearby monitoring station in Naples is keeping watch 24/7 on the activity of vvus the volcano is permanently monitored with a network of seismometers and ground deformation stations and uh the signals from these instruments are sent directly to the vus observatory so if you go and visit it you will see Banks of screens that showing changes in seismicity and movements of the ground minute by minute the information they’re studying here keeps them updated about every minor movement in the Earth around the volcano and acts as an early warning system for future eruptions should there be any evidence that the eruption could be over size of the Pompeo eruption then consideration would also have to be given given to the Potential Threat to Naples itself Cutting Edge science along with physical preservation have deepened our understanding of this fascinating ruin what we see here is a city that is crumbling that is in it on its last legs uh but also an effort to try to save it for for the future if we lose the city of Pompei to a volcanic eruption or to some other form of Devastation what we lose is the greatest single place to walk in into the past and to exercise one of those great things that technology can’t yet do maybe hopefully never will be able to do which is to imagine to reconstruct in our mind from the information in front of us and to see a past that isn’t actually there but you can feel and know from inside your mind preserving this side is the biggest fight the biggest challenge for everyone here technicians scientists archaeologists in Pompei [Music] all the new technologies that are being employed here and the new ways of documenting this fascinating City will soon provide us with an incredibly detailed virtual view of Pompei a world that neither Mount vvus nor wind or rain will ever be able to destroy a perfect copy of an ancient city that science hopes will forever stand stand the test of time