Doomed to Fail - Re-Release: Lost in Time - The burying of Pompeii from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Let's go back to our Volcano Series for Natural Disaster Week! Today, we'll tell the story of how Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. We'll cover what type of volcano, the warnings of doom, the cities themselves, how Nero sent help, how they were discovered centuries later, and how climbing Mt. Vesuvius is hella boring.This was part 2 in our 7 part series that you can find anywhere you listen!🌋 VolcanoesEp 38: Volcanoes Pt 1 - Mt. Toba's Echo: Journey into Earth's Cataclysmic PastA prehistoric eruption so massive it may have nearly wiped out humanity.Ep 42: Volcanoes Pt 2 - Time Capsule of Tragedy: Exploring Pompeii's Frozen HistoryMount Vesuvius destroys—and preserves—an entire Roman city in one day.Ep 46: Volcanoes Pt 3 - The Silent Summer: Tambora's Echo in TimeAn eruption in 1815 caused global famine and the “year without a summer.”Ep 51: Volcanoes Pt 4 - Krakatoa: Exploring the Tectonic Plates Beneath the Cataclysmic EruptionOne of the loudest sounds in history, an eruption that reshaped the map—and the climate.Ep 59: Volcanoes Pt 5 - Mud, Fire, and Ash: The Mt. Pelée EruptionIn 1902, a pyroclastic flow annihilated the city of Saint-Pierre in seconds.Ep 66 - Volcanoes Part 6 - George Vancouver, this is it!: The Eruption of Mt. St. HelensWhen the mountain blew in 1980, it was one of the most iconic eruptions of the 20th century.Ep 71 - Volcanoes Part 7 - The End of the World - Yellowstone & Mass ExtinctionsThe mother of all volcanoes—and how super-eruptions may have ended worlds before. Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortthall James Simpson, case number B.A. 019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Sweet. And we're back. Taylor, can you just do the introductions? I'm going to keep doing the two-day thing. You don't have to. I mean, we do what we want to do. But hello, welcome to Doom to Fail, the podcast, where we talk about. historical or true crime relationship or thing that was doomed to fail that was never going to make

it. Experiences. Tragedies. Experiences. Things that happened. And today, we're going to go into a historical story. And I told you Fars that I am drinking some wine because, as expected, we're going back to ancient Rome.

And we're going to do volcanoes, part two. No way. Yay. Okay. I'm excited about the volcano stories. I know that we're not a volcano podcast, but we can kind of be a volcano podcast. It's part two of seven volcanoes. So this is the one.

This is the story of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. Yay. Okay. I'm excited about this. Have you been to Pompeii? Do you talk about this yet? No, I have a thing that I just refuse to do anything that's popular because I'm a Korean. I'm cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm too cool. Okay. So like, you should go. No, I'm not going to. I mean, you literally told me how boring it was. I didn't tell you how boring it was.

It actually seems flat and there's like nothing there is where you told me. I don't think I said that because I want to talk about how cool it is like nine times in this. So I just, I take umbrage with that accusation. One of us is a liar and I bet it's me. Okay. So I watched a couple YouTube videos. with Dan Snow, who's from history hit, who I'm watching a lot of his stuff. It's really great. I also, there's some kind of more academic things I read, one about the amphitheater, one about some bones we'll talk about later, and obviously like Wikipedia to get some dates right.

And I also watched the 2014 movie Pompeii. Have you seen that? Who was that a Ben Aff, is that a Jerry Brockhammer thing? No, it's Paul W.S. Anderson. We have more talk about it later. I'll talk about it more later. I'll talk about it more later, but I'll watch that. It's like, it's fun. It's not great, but it's fun. So this is a story that's like, you think this could never happen to us. And when you think about archaeology and looking at these ancient cities and things,

even like finding ruins of things that aren't as well preserved as Pompeii, the thing that I think of is like, could anyone ever excavate my house? Like, could that happen to me? You know, like, if today, during this hurricane the mountain next to me falls on my house will they find my house in two thousand years and will only know about me you know things like that because you think it will never happen but the people of pompey never thought that's what happened to them you know like every town

to we excavate they didn't know i think the reason why they would why they like to ask excavate those things is because there was no real written history and so the only way to totally understand how people lived was that but i bet people will know in like a thousand years probably how you lived. Yeah. I think I think, yes, I think you're probably right, but I also think that I think that I think that our civilization is

like at like a pinnacle peak part that probably isn't. Maybe. I don't know. It's a lot. We have these books, this is not in my line. We have these books that are like describing the world to kids in a way to tell them that that religion is fake and there is no magic, but it's still cool. you know and there's one of them where it's like you're like oh this world is like perfect for us and it goes back and it's like every time in evolution whatever it was was like this world's perfect for me and then something weird happened and then you evolved into the next thing you know so it's kind of like i do wonder between the two of us and three thousand years or if there's aliens that showed up and we're all dead and buried whether they would dig my house up or your house first i did when we did have a big hole in the backyard because of a rainstorm and we had a tractor

come and fill it in but i put a beach ball in it just to confuse future archaeologists that is very that is very on brand for you taylor thank you so they'll be like was there a beach here what it's happening when they find that in the hole in my backyard in 10 000 years oh i love it um so yeah so there's also obviously a dan carlin story where he is obsessed with um this one king at one point xenophon sees the ruins of this city and he says what is that and the people around are like we don't know but it was ninava which is was a huge bustling city 200 years before and 200 years later it's in ruins and no one remembers that so like yeah kind of crazy so i'm going to raise you a quote from pliny the younger i'll tell you more about him later

but just going to tell you a little bit about what it was like the day in 79 ad when mount vesuvius erupted and destroyed the city of pompey how does pliny the elder know this i will tell you in a little bit. But I'm setting the scene. Okay. Sure. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men. Some were calling their parents, others, their children, or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death and their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined that there were no gods left, that the universe was plunged into internal darkness.

forever more. It's like, okay. That's intense. Shit's getting destroyed. It's super intense. So we're going to talk about what Pompey was, the city and the area, what happened in 79 AD, and then how we found it. Okay.

That's a super cool story too. So Pompeii is in Italy, obviously. People have been living in that area so far as we know since about negative 8,000. Again, I'm doing negative, negative 8,000. There were Etruscans, Saminites, the Punic War. that Dan Carlin has a whole big thing on happened around there. But now we're like just taking over to the positive years, like 50s, 50, year 50-ish. And it is now in Roman territory.

So the Roman Empire is, you know, building and growing all over Europe. And that is what Pompeii is kind of under. It's actually a fun story about Emperor Nero, who we talked about a very long time ago. but Emperor Nero had to kind of in 59 in year 59 there was a riot in Pompeii because to from Pompeii and the city of New Syria which was nearby there was like a gladiator thing and like a race or whatever and they got in like a bunch of fights and a bunch of people died and it was like a huge riot and chaos so Nero was like fine you guys can't have gladiators for 10 years so we took away their right to have like gladiators and in Pompeii they probably didn't actually like wait all 10 years but that's how they got punished and they got in trouble for having this big riot and emperor Nero did that which is fun all the gladiars like thank god i know for real can i just like be irregularly now and that one's going to eat in by a lion yeah um so pompey's on the coast it's a beautiful as close to naples

i've been to naples i had a terrible time in naples i had like the weirdest time it was like half under construction and like it was just weird but i did get to go to pompey and i'm glad that i did and you kind of take the train down like sorrento like the italian coast it's so pretty i think the day i went to pompey was like maybe the same day i went to capri like it's just gorgeous um there's another town near pompey called herculaneum which was also destroyed by mount vesuvius in 79 and talk a little bit about that cheap but pompey is like the famous one so it was also a vacation town so some rich romans people who lived like literally in rome would have like a vacation villa and pompe so it's just like a nice place to be yeah weather by the beach so i was took some notes as i was watching the 2014 movie so

paul w s anderson he's the director he did event horizon in the budget resident evils you know some stuff that we love this is not this is not his best film guys event horizon it's like you can you can watch that over and over and over it's like crack oh my god um yeah it's so good so um the guy who played John Snow is the main character in Game of Thrones. Kid Harrington. Yeah. Also, I think it's fun, this is an aside, that the guy who invented vaccines was named John Snow. Really?

It's fun. And then another fun one that always makes me laugh, which is dumb. But the first, like, white person to go into Imperial Japan and kind of see what they were doing there on their island or they're kind of isolated was named Matthew Perry, which makes me laugh every single. all the time I hear it. Yeah. So in the movie, Kit Harrington plays a slave. This time in Rome,

which you talked about before, there's tons of enslaved people. It's not really about race. It's about, you know, just conquering. So he plays a cult, and the Romans come,

and they, you know, come to Britain, kill his family, take him on as a slave. He's a kid kind of wandering around, which I hate the idea of a child would be alone.

And then someone that grabs him and he becomes a gladiator. Also in the film, Kiefer Sutherland isn't is in it as like a baddie and he is a senator and another thing that I always find hilarious is that Roman senators like in this time 2000 years ago just had like regular dude haircuts you know like in real life yeah they just like they had like their haircut was like kind of not like shaved but like a close just like nicely cropped haircut and just like it's like a regular dude haircut and you're just like I feel like I don't know I just like it should be different but it's not it's very like they're heads look very modern when they're wearing togas, but that was the style then. Well, the toga gives away the time. Yeah. So the reason that I like the movie and that I, you know, things about it, that it kind of gives

you an idea of what it looked like then, look what it felt like when people were actually living there. And it feels very, very modern. So stuff that they found in Pompeii, there were at least 31 bakeries. There were baths. There were bars. There were stores. We found a fast food restaurant.

I'll tell you about in a little bit. At an outdoor market, there's like, you know, the streets are, you know, very well, like, made. There's these big stepping stones that you have to step across the street because there's, like, always chariots going by. There's, you know, kind of water rushing through. There's horse poop everywhere. So, like, it's people were really actively living there and living their lives there. The things that you miss from excavations and from the ruins are, like, the colors.

the fabric and the wood and like the things that just like kind of filled in yes exactly the richness of it um when you think about ancient rome you think about like for the most part i think about cold like white marble and like you know all those things but it wasn't white it was painted you know like even in like ancient greece like the crop list was painted like that paint just has to come off after 2 000 years but things were really bright there are bright colors you know there were overhangs and curtains and clothes and just people like living their lives and they had all this stuff and this stuff isn't there anymore but like we just have like the outline of it yeah you know um and what else so okay so there's some cool things that are in pompey

there's like a big amphitheater that we'll talk about and it's just like it's just a shadow of the past but it's the best shadow that we have of what life was like in the Roman Empire. And I'll tell you a little bit. Oh, why? So Pompeii stood in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. And obviously at this time, they're like, natural disasters are because of the gods. Like, we piss someone off.

We have to like do sacrifice a goat or like whatever. But they didn't know about volcanoes because how would they, how would they know about volcanoes? They don't know. Right. You know, like you just have never heard of it before. How would you even think about a mountain exploiting? You just like didn't know. So I've actually been to Mount Vesuvius.

I've been to Pompeii. Do you remember that joke from Zoolander? Have you seen Zoolander? Oh, God. Yeah, like 80 times. So when Hansel's telling that story, and then he's like, Hansel, could you, have you been taking peyote for like six straight days? Could this be in your head? And he's like, it was. I've never been to been to Mount Vesuvius. Like, I think, at least he laughed so hard. He's like, falling up on his shoes, could just be in your head. Have you been smoking peyote for six straight days? Yes. So when I went there, it was so hilarious and like kind of awful because you kind of walk around it and when you get to the top they made you pay like five more euros to see the middle and I was like fuck you so I had to pay like five more euros

got to the top and you kind of look over the edge of the volcano and it's like you know like a flat sandy period oh you walk up the volcano yeah it's not active right it is active all volcanoes are active but it's not like going to erupt tomorrow oh okay um it's not like it's not totally dead because when you look over the edge like it is I'm trying to like in my memory it's like a a flat sandy area that is smoky a little bit like it's hot so wait when you look in can you see the magma no you just see sand but you can like tell that it's hot whoa yeah um and then also do you know who else climbing out vesuvius is mary shelley mary shelley um the shelly's did that on their tour of europe which is fun um so anyway it's cool i think we should go to italy it's very fun so now it is um

in like year 60 AD positive 60 the emperor Titus is in Rome and things are getting a little bit weird there's always been some like small earthquakes in the area and you just kind of like make a sacrifice and hope for the best on February 5th the year 62 there was a great earthquake it was probably a five or six on the Richter scale and it was a feast day people were preparing for a party and there was tons of damage in Pompeii there were a lot of fires because oil lamps fell over and caught things on fire there's a lot of of things that just kind of crumbled to the ground. So they took us an opportunity to update some things. So now we can see that some things were pre the Great Earthquake and updated after. They were rebuilt or they were fixed, stuff like that. So they built public baths after this. They put like a veneer over some things. But the people who remember the Great Earthquake are rattled. You know, like they remember and they're scared because it was scary. You don't even know, you don't know what that was. You don't know what the fuck just happened. And so in the year 65, Emperor Nero and Pompea, his wife visited, visited Pompeii. We know that they were there.

This is probably around the time that Nero performed in Naples. Remember how he like sang everywhere? Yes. And won every competition. Yeah, you had to be like, oh my God, he's so good at thinking and playing the violin or whatever. So, and so Niro has been there. But now it's 79. So at 79 and Mount Vesuvius begins to erupt. So originally we thought from like the stuff that we know is that it was in August. But now they think, it was actually the 24th to 25th of October. We'll never know like exactly for sure. But when they started excavating more things, they found things like they could tell the fruit being sold were fall fruits and that they were selling like dried summer fruits. So like it was making that transition into fall. People were wearing more clothing than you would in August. So they like

think that it was October. But I guess we'll never know. If I had a population of anywhere from like 11 to 2 to 20,000 people, it's hard to tell. Exactly. there. Some people have had vacation homes there too, so there could have been some empty houses. Right. You know what I mean? The eruption lasted two days. And we know about it from plenty of the younger

who I quoted earlier. And he lived in Naples and he could see everything from the Bay of Naples so he could see the smoke and you could see what was happening, but he didn't he wasn't affected by it. Like he didn't get hurt. So he watched it. He watched it happen. And he wrote down his

his account 25 years later. And so that we know from what he said. So like also 25 years, five years after it happened. So it could potentially not be exact or whatever. But he was the nephew of Pliny the Elder. So their elder and younger, he was eventually adopted by him. Like his dad died when he was really young. And Plenty the Elder was very famous. He was like a famous statesman. He was like a lawyer. He wrote the first encyclopedia, just like a real Roman scholar. Pliny the elder. He was also an admiral in the Roman Navy. So he was like a really like big guy physically as well. He was a big guy. So in 79, Pliny of the elder was 55. And so his nephew, the younger is back in Naples. And Plenty of the elder gets a letter from his friend

Rictina in Pompey. She had a villa at the bottom of the mountain. And he got the letter in like time to go try to get her, which is she was probably like feeling rumbling and being like, I got to get the fuck on a dodge you know like thinking about the earthquakes like no concept of a volcano but potentially an earthquake you know right so he goes to get her um and he tries to keep people calm he like goes to sleep and like takes a nap and is like everything's fine you guys like we're going to get out of here no big deal like trying to remain remain calm eventually the air starts to get smoky and like he probably had asthma he was like really big and he dies of a heart attack so he doesn't he never leaves pompey he he he he stayed there but i think his friends get out wait who elder

the elder yeah okay so plenty of the younger one of his other things was like i'm going to tell this story so that you know that my uncle was like trying to be a hero when you died right you know um um so sip a wine probably has a wine hopefully people got drunk when this is what else the fuck you're going to do what else is there day one pumice starts raining down from the top of the mountain like burning rocks just coming into the city like raining over the city um i mean if you could fucking imagine that happening like in any city right now and we understand what pumice is you know just like what the fuck is going on the gods are so mad at us people start to leave a lot of people were able to leave and they took a lot of their expensive things so some of the bodies they found later

like people had like all their jewels with them because they were trying to run away with like their with their stuff um there i learned about this i think in college i learned the story there's a story where there was like a basement area like a cellar where they found a bunch of bodies um later and they probably suffocated in there they probably were like let's go underground which i think would make sense you would think that would be okay but then when the city was covered like they suffocated but in that in that place and they found a woman who was pregnant so they found like you know her bones with her baby's bones like on top of each other but her bones were green because she was wearing a bunch of copper jewelry that ended up

which is like super interesting that she was like in there holding her pregnant belly and like suffocating to death crazy um in the movie that pompey like the this day is chaos which totally makes sense there's fire falling from the sky like you don't know what the fuck is going on um and i imagine that like the richer people could leave which happens now and all the time you know like in 2020 how would you leave you could you take a boat and just leave. Like before the big eruption started, you could start to leave. You could get, you could take your horses and try to get far enough away. Like, that was still potentially possible on day one. Because it sounds like one of those things. Like, I mean, look, like,

okay, so it doesn't matter if like the big one hits LA, if you live in Bel Air or Compton, like you're fucking dead, right? So like this feels more like one of those situations where it's like it's going to hit you and then your, your opportunity to mitigate the impact is pretty limited. But you have an entire day. You don't know what's coming, but it's still happening only like the first day is just as, it's just raiding rocks of fire. So we deal. I know. That's why I was thinking. I was like, it sounds wrong. You're right. You're not wrong. Then it sounds fucking terrible. And yeah, on your way out, you can get hit in the head of the flying fire rock and die. Like, so I'm sure people died during that too, but people did leave,

which is good. So they were able to get out before the really, really bad thing happened. Because a really, really bad thing happened on day two. So day two is pyroclastic flow day, which you've learned about before. That's the day when that hot ass ash comes as fast as fucking possible and covers you and kills you. Your brain boils. You die pretty immediately. Things catch on fire, but like they're encased so fast, you know. So like there's things where, I know we'll talk about the bodies in a second, but like there's doors that are like wooden doors that we have plaster molds of because the ash just like came around it so fast the doors burned but it left the imprint inside the ash wow so it's fast and hot it's coming just so so fucking fast that's the

thing that i remember because my dad told me about vesuvius when i was a kid before like he's like my son's going to be a scientist um and he barely missed the mark but he told me about vesuvius and i looked it up and his main thing was like yeah like preserved everything because because it was so hot, so fast, like, you just said, it reminded me a lot of, like, atomic bombs and how, like, there's a memory that it leaves behind because of its ferocity that's very unusual. Yeah, exactly. That's what made me think of, but I'm sure you're going to talk about that. No, that's very, that's very deep.

Yes, yes. He should try to make me a poet because that's obviously where my calling was. I think this is where you're headed. So, yeah, by the end of day two, the eruption was over and it would have been quiet and smoky and like weird because there's a whole like first floor of the whole city is under this ash so imagine if like the first floor of an entire city is just hot ash now um there are some rescue efforts that emperor titus tries to do he sends people but there's nothing they can do like they know that everybody under the ash is dead like there's no one they can save um looters and robbers go in and they're able to see like oh i see the second story of this building i know this building was a rich person's house and they do try to like dig in and steal things so some of the stuff is like kind of destroyed by looters which again people don't change the fucking happens no you know um so some of that happens um eventually

there's like another um small eruption in like 500 that kind of covers everything that's left so And then the second stories that are, that were above the ash, you know, they get destroyed by like that and like the weather. Herculeanium, the other town that was destroyed. That one got more ash. So actually it does have two stories worth of ash. So there's a lot more we can see there. But it's also harder to excavate because of that. Right.

And then people like forgot. They forgot it was there. It was like a rumor and like a legend. you know like if you were alive when it was a town you went to maybe you told your kids but two generations later no one remembered and it was just like an area that by the beach it changed the coastline it was empty you know and um Rome fell other things happened so they just forgot that that it was there and um it's like when you go to Rome there's if you're like in the subway in Rome in like underground there's like parts of it where you

have like you know glass and you can see Roman ruins because it was like ancient Rome and then like Renaissance Rome and then like now Rome and it just keeps building on top of each other so they're just like if you can't like build anything new and Rome you're going to find fucking something awesome you know yeah yeah it happens to be there

but Rome didn't get destroyed it just continued so that's why we don't know a lot of what life was like in actual ancient Rome the city because it's always been a city you know so you just like adapt and continue to do things. So in now let's get. So that happened. That day happened. A lot of people died. It was probably a fucking horror show. Who knows when they died mercifully, they died really fast. If they got like copy. Did everybody? Did basically everybody die? Is that what the just is? They think about like, they really don't know. They read something that was like 16,000 people died. But I know some people had like left, but no one like was there the next day. You know, like, either you left or you died there was no like survivors right um so in 1592 so like 1500 years later

an architect named dominico fontana was digging for an aqueduct and he found some ancient walls and paintings so he was like digging his well and he was like this is weird and like found like a cavern in herculean that was like a room and there's rooms underground though they didn't know we're there because they had been like encapsulated in the ash yeah in the in the in the Dan snow documentary I watched he has to go in there

and they're just like an underground amphitheater it's like bananas you can see where people used to sit and like walk and all these things because it was just like covered by things think of how many of those probably so when I was in when I was in Lisbon I was walking somewhere

I don't know where I was but Lisbon is also like a super super old city kind of like well Portugal in general is an old country and it was weird like you're in the middle of the city and you look over and the whole thing is packed full of buildings everywhere and there's just gape like in the middle of the city in the middle of the street and you you meander down there and they're like yeah we were about to knock this building down to build another building there and then when we took it down to its foundations and went a layer deep or we realized that underneath that was an amphitheater there's this millennia's old amphitheater like what the fuck it's just you're walking dude i don't know what's underneath you there could be like the home of like the former president i don't know i'm making shut up like probably like there's probably stuff everywhere and i have a couple

i have a couple stories that reminds me of one i told the kids i was like we have to go to paris paris is built on top of bones like we got to go into like the what's it called the paris where like there's Yeah, catacombs. Catacombs, exactly. There was also King Richard the third of England was found in a parking lot in, like, Leicestershire. Like, they were, like, building a parking lot. They found a dead king because that would, like,

they just like didn't do a thing. And then another one, remember that, you know, Darren Kou, that city in Turkey, where it's like all underground. Oh, yeah, yeah. That farmer who, like, found it. So, fucking cool. It's like a city, an underground city that can hold 20,000. and people that a farmer just like accidentally found so like i bet there's probably a lot of those out

there still there's so many um i think they found like the leoquin which is like a really famous like roman statue in a farm as well like there's just things that are like buried in there it's so cool um but jamaico fontana didn't really tell anyone that he had found this so he just like kind of let it go um in the 1690s some people started to see the word pompeas um carved onto things so they were like that's weird. They just kept kind of like seeing things carved on things as they kind of went lower. But they didn't really like do anything more than that. Herculean was officially rediscovered in 1738 by workers digging for the foundations of a summer palace for the king of Naples, Charles of Bourbon, who was French. And they, they started to kind of dig it up. In 1763,

they officially identified Pompeii. The first thing that they found was the amphitheater. They just like tripped over a rock started to dig and they were like oh it's a step oh it's another step oh it's another step then they found a fucking huge amphitheater just like you were saying crazy that was like the first thing that they found um so it's 1760s and who's in charge of Italy the French and who's in charge of France Napoleon Napoleon Napoleon so Napoleon like all rulers wants to be an emperor you know He's like, I want to be an emperor. I identify with Roman emperors. Like, fuck you.

I'm sure you do. So do I. Whatever. Short main complex. I identify with rich people. Make me rich. But his sister, Caroline Bonaparte, was the queen of Naples, which is hilarious. And she was put in charge of excavations.

So Caroline Bonaparte had people go and dig up the outside of Pompeii. So they dug up the outer wall so they could see what they were working with, which is pretty cool. Okay. So she- The outer wall of the amphitheater? No, of the entire city. Oh.

So they, they like found the outer wall and started digging all the way around. So they like wanted to kind of start mapping out exactly what Pompey was. So she did that. Eventually, Italy took it back and started to do

or like whatever that means. I don't know. Sorry Italian historians. But, it's Italy again. And they started excavating. There's some breaks, but they found some incredible homes,

some huge villas where they can see courtyards in different rooms and where people like went to the bathroom and slept and cooked and things like that. And the thing that is so fucking cool is that they're all painted and mosaic. And that's what you don't see anywhere else because it was saved. It was like in a time capsule underneath all this ash. The paints are bright red and bright yellow and the mosaics are brightly colored. So you can tell that like it wasn't just like marble. You know, it's like a really bright city. Obviously there's like the, paintings of like people having sex and things that people get super super excited about because like it was like a roman time there's debauchery it's super fun um they find a gladiator barracks that's actually two stories and has intact gladiator helmets so we know exactly what they wore and exactly what you know what their life was like from that they find bakeries and restaurants with bread still in the ovens you know like they can like really dig in and like find all this stuff and it is in color um for the first time which is Super Bowl.

The frescoes are oddly preserved. Like, it does look, and they're nowhere else. There's no, only there's probably more buried somewhere, but, like, you don't see that in Rome in other cities because of time.

Well, it's weird because you would assume that the heat and the ash would destroy the paint, but I guess not. It didn't. It just, like, kept it in a lot of cases.

So it's really, really beautiful. You can really see what people wore. You can see, like, there's children, there's people just, like, There's a lot of, like, daily life scenes that are painted.

Oh, they excavated, like, the whole thing. Like, I mean, the whole city is there now. I think there's a little bit left, but yeah, most of it. Well, they're still finding stuff, which I'll tell you about one second. But they kept finding holes of, like, pockets of air. And in the pockets of air, there were skeletons. So they kept finding skeletons in these pockets of air. And in 1863, a man named Giuseppe Fiorelli,

took charge of excavations and he decided that those to put plaster in those holes and see what was in there and he found that they were like a perfect cast of the bodies and that's what you've seen from Pompeii, the people's bodies

is because the ash cooled around them so quickly their bodies decomposed in that space so if you went into that space their bones are in the ground the shape of it is a shape of the person It's like a sarcophagus. So that's what it looks like.

Yeah. So it's just like, it's like actually like exactly the way their bodies were you can see the fear of their faces. You know, you can see children. You can see dogs. They had, because Romans had dogs like on leashes. They had like pets. So you would like see them too. One of the pictures I saw was, um, a guy with teeth.

Well, you know, it's not his actual teeth, but it's like the preservation of the teeth. Oh, okay, okay. You know what I mean? It's like if someone like, if you make a mold of something. Like you would put something in plaster, you know, whatever. So it's exactly like a mold of the humans. And that's what they're finding. So you can really see like people who are running for their lives, you know, they were scared.

They're like holding each other. And there's places where they find like a bunch of people together and you're like, did they know each other? Like, we'll never know. Like was it a family? Was it, you know, people who are running together and found each other and tried to find safety somewhere, like whatever. But people like huddled together because like they're going to die.

They still do that today. They're still finding, finding these pockets with bodies. They use resin now instead of plaster because it's more. durable and they can keep the bones, but they're still doing that, and that was in 1863. So then, fast forward to the 1930s, and Mussolini is now in charge of Italy, and he really wants to go back in and start doing that, like, we're ancient Romans, let's do a lot more excavating. So he goes, but they go back in, kind of brings it up again. He finds a jinny, not he, but like, they find a gymnasium that has these awesome mosaics of people like working out.

as people swimming people like doing like stretches and just like you don't was like a gym people like worked out just like such a normal city yeah you know um so um during world war two the excavation stopped because there's other shit to do um in 1943 pompey was bombed by the british americans and Canadians um they said like oh it was an accident we didn't mean to like fuck you of course you of course you did whatever um so some of it was destroyed by world war two bombs but But luckily, not everything. But there's a house called, like, the House of the Fallen where you can see a shell from a bomb,

from World War II bomb, because we did that then. So that brings us to now. At the beginning, the excavation was, like, very haphazard because it was 300 years ago, so they were just, like, push things over and, like, try to dig with, like, whatever. Now it's a lot more meticulous, obviously. And, like, we said about the bright colors and things like that, like now Pompeii is actually exposed to the elements, now it's starting to get destroyed.

That's the downside. The earth. Yeah. So we can see it, but now it's out there. So now that it's out here, like, you know, just like regular elements, rain and wind and things are starting to fade. You can also like really go there. Like I remember, I touched a wall. I touched a fresco.

I was like, and I was like walking on mosaics. You know, you could like really walk in it. I think they maybe have pulled that back a little bit because that was 20 years ago. I read a story a while ago, I don't know where I read it, but like some person was like they took a rock home from Pompeii and then they were like cursed forever, you know, so like don't steal shit from Pompey, but I'm sure there's like a gift shop.

But they're still finding stuff. So in 2020, they found a fast food place. So it's a restaurant, like they found like a building with a restaurant. And it has this like low counter. And in the counter there are holes with pots in them. And in front of each pot is a painting of like a chicken or a fish. or a lamb so you could like go there and be like all have the chicken and they would like put it in like a bowl and you could take it with you that's pretty cool but it's super cool or you could like sit in there and like eat and drink so there's like restaurants people like really living um and in 2021 they found a chariot and a mummified freed slave so they found like some more things so they're still finding things um and it's so cool because i mean hopefully it it lasts you know longer but the fact that we have this time capsule um about this ancient Roman city because of this awful tragedy, we can see what they ate and drank

and did for fun. We can see who was there. We can learn so much about the entire Roman Empire. So I also wanted to announce that I'm quitting my job and moving to Pompey to work there. Congratulations. Wow. The big reveal. That's a big reveal. I'm very excited. I have not been offered a job, but I think I'm going to show up with like a paintbrush and like some hope and be like, hey, guys, what can I do for you? I really want to just live here and figure out what happened. because it's so fucking cool until it explodes again because four million people live in the area now so looking at pictures of pompey i would say that the interesting part about it like mentally is that it looks like any like old city because they dug it all up but the part you have to keep remembering

it's like it's like 2 000 years old like it shouldn't look the way it looks which is like the interesting part because it you know it looks like Lisbon looks like a part of Lisbon or anywhere else it's been around for very very long time but you got to remember that like it shouldn't look this good basically yeah exactly it shouldn't look that good and it looks great and then you also have to like use your imagination for that second layer like imagine the second story imagine fabric imagine wood imagine animals imagine people like bring it to life a little bit, which I think that's why I like to the movie, because it kind of brings it a little bit to life, even though it's silly. But it looks silly. I looked at the screen graphs of it. It looks really good. It's on Hulu. You can watch it. Yeah. Not great. Yeah. But it's cool. I think you should go. All right. Well, that can be next on the agenda. Cool. Wow. Yeah, these frescoes are really, really cool.

Isn't it? Oh, they're so hard. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. When you picture it. when you picture pompey like it's just like a lot of like just dead gray darkness and then it's actually really really beautiful and that's like the inside of someone's house so like you if you were like a rich person in pompey like the inside of your house would be covered with like bright red like trim and frescoes of people like having fun you know of like you and your family's accomplishments and shit so cool if you had to choose how are you going giant earthquake or giant volcano i feel like this is like the longest pause ever the volcano would be very quick but it'd be very scary

but the and the earthquake i don't i hate i hate the idea of being stuck in a fallen building you remember i got a probably collapse in miami like a couple the last year or whatever like people they didn't find any survivors that people could have technically been there for like a week yeah and they just died that is awful so maybe the volcano that's quicker yeah okay This is a two-part question. So, volcano or ill-constructed marine vessel to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic? Oh, my God. Volcano.

I don't know why. I feel safer where there's air, even though I know the air is about to kill me. The fact that there is no air in that thing, I think that's, I don't like that. What do you think? I think if you were to just drug me, blindfold. me tie me down and then put me in the Titanic submersible I'd probably pick that because when it happens you don't even know what happened well you can't be drugged and tie down you have to like be like what's happening I don't know are we going up

I don't know if I'm paying that much money I think I can just choose I choose how how it happens die in a volcano for free um your point actually yeah from an economic financial perspective that would be the most I mean, that Ramsey character, he would definitely recommend that, whoever's name is. Yeah. Yeah. So, crazy day, crazy thing that have been there. It's super cool for us that we get to see that history.

It's fucking fascinating. It's like, you know, everything else we know from like fucking bits of, bits of pottery. And this is like a whole thing. We can really like see stories and stuff. So it's cool. There's one I didn't say. I forgot to mention this. There's like a house that they know was owned by a woman who lived alone named Julia.

And she would rent out parts of her house. so she was like the first Airbnb yeah exactly a little Airbnb in Pompeii and it would have been really fucking nice until we know how they know she rented out that house yes on the side of her house is carved an advertisement that says rooms for rent it's incredible is that cool i know it's so cool i might go to pompe you might have convinced me i think we should go together um yeah i definitely want to go that sounds great um sweet well taylor thank you for sharing your story um i will say that i just pulled up the recent article about hillary and it says take this seriously okay everybody seems to be uh taking it seriously so

it's getting a little darker i'm in the window um yeah it's happening well if you ever if you and you and you the kids and one need a place to flee too you got a place here so thank you um i will keep you posted yeah good luck tomorrow unless i'm they're with you. I know for real. You're going to be living at the airport for the next a couple days. So go ahead of it. Yeah, I'm used to that. Well, thank you. Cool. I have one announcement. I found out that my friend died today. So I just want to tell a little story. My friend boy from high school, his name was Nathan, but they called him boy, which was cute. He was so cute. He was so 90s cute. I had the biggest freaking crush on him. And his house was like

the fun house and his sister Neva she I was talking with her today a little bit how how sad I am and um but you could just like do whatever you wanted at their house and it was like so fun you'd always just like have big parties and their parents didn't care and I remember one party I was like super young I was like 15 or 16 and I was like trying to sleep it off because I like drank a ton and I was crying because I thought all my friends were prettier than me I remember I was laying and like I don't know what the fuck I was like in like a mattress and like the floor and I can I can like picture the hot tears. I like remember the hot tears. And boy came in the room and he was like, are you okay. And I was like, oh, my friends are prettier than me. And he was like no. And it was

nothing nefarious. Like nothing happened. But he, he like, he like gave me a really big hug. And I remember feeling the hot tears and feeling this like curly curly hair like all over my face. Because he was wearing this like huge blonde wig because he was like balls. But he's wearing this like huge blonde curly wig and like comforting me. But I was like super confused because I was like drunk and sad. And it was just like this hair and he was just he was just a very very nice guy and he left behind a wife and a young daughter so really sad but but nothing but good memories of hanging out with him so i just wanted to share that he passed away today um he passed away like this week oh you but you found out yeah you talk about that sucks isn't it isn't it's like you get we're at that age now

we're like this starts picking up speed it's kind of wild yeah sorry you hear that taylor thank you i also wanted to make a plea to the lincoln and facebook community that like if someone dies please don't put them on my list of people that i have to add to my podcast like on lincoln because i've definitely invited several dead people to like our podcast because otherwise they're just going to be the top of my list forever you know wait you why are you adding dead people to our podcast what because on lincoln i get so we have a page on LinkedIn for our podcast. You can follow it, everyone.

But I'm inviting people, but I can only invite 250 people a month. So every month at the beginning of the month, I invite 250 people of my friends on LinkedIn or whatever. But at the top of the list is in, like, I don't know what order it's in. By the very top of the list, if you don't invite someone, they're going to stay at the top of the list. So I had like Jim at the top of my list for like two months. And then I was like, I don't want to keep seeing Jim's face every month.

I'm trying to invite people. Like it just makes me sad. So I just invited him. who's off the list. Oh, I see what I mean. I see what you were saying. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's real sad. But there'll be more of that as we get older. God, I just, you just reminded me of, um, shit, who was that? I don't know. It's like high school friends that like some, somebody that passed and their, um, their Facebook just stayed kind of stagnant forever. ever and but it wasn't marked as a memorial site and so the reminders keep coming up about their

birthday yeah because if it's if you i don't know how it works but if you don't like tell facebook that person's dead they'll just like pretend i mean it just does a normal facebook thing right and so you got to tell them and then they stops pushing you to remind anyways i know it was just my friend stephanie's birthday she passed away last year and i got them invite and i think people posted like happy birthday i don't know that they knew because he wouldn't doesn't say on her thing that she that she's So, I mean, I wrote like, I miss you, but I mean, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Okay. Well, bummer, bummer situation. But apparently, you know, we have a LinkedIn group, so, you know, join that, evil. We're on every social at Doom DeFill Pod. All the socials about the blow up. Yes. Thank you, everyone for your support. Please send us emails.

Send us Instagram messages. We definitely read them. We really appreciate it. And chat for email so you won't ever miss an episode and tell your friends. Oh, thank you to my friend, Christine, who told a really fun story about an earthquake on Instagram. I reposted it, but she was telling the story, the volcano episode reminded her of when she was in that 1994 earthquake in California. Yeah, Northridge. And she was so cute.

She was like, she was a kid and she had built a fort and she was like in her fort. And then it started happening. and she was like, if Ford's crashing down around me, it's so cute. So she's like, I'm super traumatized by everything, but it was sweet. Thank you for sharing. That was very cute. Sweet. Well, thanks, everyone. Thanks, Saylor. Have a great rest of your day. Bye all.