Anderson, most of us associate the word Pompeii with disaster.

But while the deadly volcanic blast of 79 a.d.

was the most memorable aspect to this doomed civilization,

it was still just a single moment

in the history of this Italian city.

Today, we're looking at things you probably

didn't know about Pompeii.

So how much do we really know about the daily life

of Pompeii?

And just how devastating was the big blast that ended it all?

Let's see what we can dig up.

But before we start, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History

Channel.

Now let's go.

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At only a few hundred miles from the heavily populated Rome,

Pompeii served as a favored summer destination

for wealthy citizens looking for an extravagant vacation.

The city was far less dense than its Roman neighbor

and featured many tourist attractions,

such as a large amphitheater, as well as a commercial center

featuring bathhouses and shops.

Think of it as the peaceful island in the film

Jaws, except with a murderous volcano instead of a shark.

And also sex, lots and lots of sex.

It wouldn't be a true ancient Roman destination

without an absolute plethora of brothels,

something excavations have long confirmed.

The largest and most visited example

is known as the Lupanar.

Located in the center of the city,

archeologists were able to identify

a layout consisting of small cubicles each equipped

with a masonry bed.

Along with this pretty obvious sign of sex work,

the main building also featured an erotic menu on its walls

describing not only a list of explicit acts, but prices

for them as well.

In fact, the entire city was a mecca for fornication.

As many of the buildings outside of the brothel

were found to feature similar erotic art,

making this more like Amsterdam than a family destination.

And speaking of street art.

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If you think graffiti is a modern invention,

then you've clearly never seen the hooligan antics

of caveman civilizations.

We've been crudely marking our territory

since the dawn of man, Pompeii being no different.

Modern visitors of the scorch landmark

can still enjoy the wall humor of centuries past,

including that still preserved proclamation of, "Myrtis, you

suck well" found scrawled on one of the city's brothel walls.

Turns out that even after several millennia,

sex humor doesn't change one bit.

But it's not all ancient oral sex recommendations

and brothel rates.

While there's little written evidence

of pre-eruption Pompeii, many detailed and well-preserved

frescoes on the city walls shed some light on the civilization.

One of the more prominent examples

is the difference in skin tone portrayed

between men and women, the former being golden bronze,

while the latter appearing in lighter tones while

gilded with jewelry and among fancy furnishings.

According to scholars, this dramatic difference

indicates that women had a higher rank

than their male counterparts.

Their pale skin a sign of indoor living and luxury.

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Originating from Vulcan, the Roman god a fire,

the word volcano wasn't invented until Mount Etna's eruption

in the 1600s.

Before that the people of Pompeii

had no formal definition for the impending destructor

of their city.

It's probably no surprise to hear

that there was an abundance of warning signs leading up

to the eruption of the Vesuvius, all of which

were ignored by the unaware inhabitants below.

For starters, a massive earthquake

hit the mountain a few decades before,

something that locals failed to connect to the possibility

of an eruption.

Additionally, underground springs began drying up

and fish from the Sarno River began

to die due to the heavy, acidity in the water.

In other words, had the citizens of Pompeii

been even a little bit familiar with these warning signs,

we probably would know this as one of the biggest

near misses of history.

But that's not the only oversight that plague Pompeii.

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You would imagine that the discovery

of an ancient and apocalyptic burial ground

would immediately pop for anyone who came upon it,

but that actually wasn't the case for Pompeii.

The first remnants were found by a crew of workers in 1599,

initially in the form of wall frescoes coupled

with an inscription flat out naming

the buried city beneath them.

Amazingly, this wouldn't lead to full discovery.

The small hint of ruins were examined

by the Italian architect, Domenico Fontana,

who failed to identify the presence of a city

below the site.

It was then abandoned for another 150 years

before the King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon,

finally ordered an excavation in the late 1740s.

Never send an architect to do an archaeologist job.

Amazingly, this would not be the final flub

in the founding of Pompeii.

In October of 2018, scientists discovered

an overlooked and crucial piece of evidence.

Specifically, a date written in charcoal

marking two months after the assumed eruption

date of August 24th, 79 a.d.

Considering how fragile charcoal writing is,

archaeologists now speculate that this is highly probable

that the city was destroyed slightly later than originally

believed.

Is it the most exciting discovery?

Maybe not, unless you happen to be a hardcore Pompeii fanatic.

Which, who isn't?

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While it's commonly accepted that the citizens of Pompeii

died from suffocation due to ash,

new studies suggest that this is actually false.

In reality, the population of this doom metropolis

met death at the hands of the extreme heat from the blast.

Killing them instantly with exposure

to temperatures far over 1,000 degrees.

Well that sounds like a literal hell on Earth.

The grotesque upside was that the blanket of ash and searing

gas is also the reason that Pompeii's victims and culture

were seemingly untouched and preserved for over 2000 years.

Amazingly, this process preserved the terrified bodies

better than any modern method of embalming.

So we guess the lesson here is that if you wish to immortalize

yourself long after your death, there's

no better method than living near an angry volcano.

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The aforementioned preservation of countless ash

consumed victims is undoubtedly the most famous aspect

of the Pompeii disaster.

It also yielded countless macabre vignettes

detailing the final and personal moments

of the city's inhabitants.

One such story comes from the discovery

of a man who managed to flee the initial eruption,

only to be thwarted soon after.

And by thwarted, we mean he was seemingly crushed

by a gigantic hot flying rock.

The stone, speculated as the lining of a door,

was jettisoned through the air by the volcano's

pyroclastic flow.

From there it landed squarely on the head

of our unlucky escapee.

And while you may think that this is what did him in,

the discovered truth turned out to be far more surprising

and even more grisly.

After further investigation, it was later

revealed that the skull of the victim

was intact, meaning that he was merely trapped and later killed

by the heat and ash.

To make matters worse, lesions found

on the bones led scientists to believe

he was already suffering from an infection that

inhibited his movement.

Talk about bad luck.

But it's not all gloom.

One surprising discovery happened

when archaeologists took a closer look

at the victim's teeth.

By using multi-layer CT scans on the skeletons,

scientists found near perfect chompers

on the 3D reconstructions of the bodies.

Their exemplary dental work was thanks

to a combination of a diet of fruit and vegetables,

coupled with an extremely high level of fluorine existing

around the volcano.

So hey, at least our stone crushed skeleton

died with a minimal dental bill.

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While historians disagree on the exact total of casualties,

some estimate the body count at Pompeii to be roughly 30,000.

While this seems like an ungodly amount,

it's not nearly the most deadly eruption

in the history of volcanoes.

Out of the top five deadliest eruptions, the city of Pompeii

doesn't even make the cut.

The winner being the lesser known 1815 eruption

of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which claimed

the lives of 80,000 people.

So why do we remember Pompeii so well?

Most likely because of the terrifying aftermath

so carefully preserved by nature.

No clearer picture of desperation and terror

has been found quite like the city of Pompeii.

The bodies, many still being discovered,

depict a futile attempt to escape the inevitable.

One of the saddest examples being a 1990 discovery

that many of the citizens attempted

to use their tunics as masks to ward off the sulfurous air.

There's even a single firsthand account

of the devastation written by one

of the few witnesses of the eruption

in a letter between Pliny the Younger two Cornelius Tacitus.

The aftermath was described as, "a dense black cloud spreading

over the earth like a flood accompanied

by the shrieks of women, wailing of infants,

and the shouting of men."

The emotional account goes on with Younger recounting

that, "some prayed for death in their terror of dying

and that many beseeched the aid of the gods,

but still more imagined there were no gods left

and that the universe was plunged

into eternal darkness forever more."

Just imagine having no knowledge of volcanoes

and witnessing what was surely the end of all times.

This is the whore internalized by the city of Pompeii.

And yet, it's not the scariest detail of this disaster.

Mount Vesuvius, a landmark towering at 4,200 feet,

remains the only active volcano on mainland Europe

and has erupted over 50 times that we're aware of.

Today, it is surrounded by over three million people,

making it one of the most dangerous volcanoes

due to the potential consequences

to another eruption.

In other words, there's no saying if the events of 79 a.d.

will be the final tragedy to befall Pompeii.

But there's no harm in crossing our fingers, right?

What do you think is your worst case, natural disaster

scenario?

Let us know in our comments below and while you're at it,

check out some of these other videos of Our Weird History.