Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back following up our
Speaker 1: last episode about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in seventy nine.
Speaker 1: You know, Robert, this is something that I have wanted
Speaker 1: to do an episode about for a long time. I
Speaker 1: think it was mainly just because I love those letters
Speaker 1: of Plenties and I wanted to read them and talk
Speaker 1: about them. But there was a reason that we just
Speaker 1: recently decided, Okay, it's time to do Vesuvius, And it
Speaker 1: was because of a new study I read about that
Speaker 1: set the lava of my heart flowing anew. And so
Speaker 1: here we are because a lot of the really great
Speaker 1: and shocking research about Vesuvius is like basically, what happened
Speaker 1: to people's bodies when when the volcano erupted? Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the first episode, how I how much,
Speaker 1: how clearly I remember looking through at only Geographic when
Speaker 1: I was a child and and seeing these images of
Speaker 1: the remains of uh In Pompeii and Herculaneum uh one
Speaker 1: in particular, I remember, was a photograph of this one
Speaker 1: bit of human remains that are referred to as ring
Speaker 1: Lady because it is the skeleton and you see, uh,
Speaker 1: these these rings there, and it's just like the skeleton
Speaker 1: emerging from the you know, half half revealed in the
Speaker 1: in the ash and soil, and it was just very haunting.
Speaker 1: It's this idea of this place just buried and frozen
Speaker 1: in time. I'm looking at this image. Does she have
Speaker 1: rings on her fingers but also bigger rings down around
Speaker 1: her like her elbow? Yes, I believe so. And I
Speaker 1: think another photo included in our notes is rather small,
Speaker 1: but I believe they are serpents too, their like, you know,
Speaker 1: precious metal serpents. Uh. So you know that all these
Speaker 1: little details like that, you know, always were just very
Speaker 1: intriguing me. Such a dramatic moment in history, and then
Speaker 1: to have so much of it preserved, Yeah, in some
Speaker 1: cases preserved in a shockingly pristine way, but in other
Speaker 1: cases transformed in an even more shocking way. So this
Speaker 1: new study that that I was reading about was by
Speaker 1: pure Paolo Petrona, published in the New England Journal of
Speaker 1: Medicine just this month or just last month in January. Actually,
Speaker 1: so Patroni was the lead author, but there were a
Speaker 1: bunch of authors named on it. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say the name of the study because that might
Speaker 1: spoil a little bit about what happened. But basically, there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of modern analyzes trying to understand
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to the bodies of the victims of
Speaker 1: Vesuvius in settlements like Pompeii and Herculaneum. It's like some
Speaker 1: of them the ones people were most familiar with, or
Speaker 1: when essentially the like the the the ashes that formed
Speaker 1: around body have been used as a kind of mold,
Speaker 1: you know, pour a substance down in there, let it uh,
Speaker 1: you know, harden, and then when you bring it back out,
Speaker 1: you have this this picture of these these humans from
Speaker 1: any nine see at the basically the moment of death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in a lot of cases, these people died under
Speaker 1: circumstances so extreme that it's difficult to imagine exactly how
Speaker 1: it would play out on our soft, fluid filled bodies. Um.
Speaker 1: This particular study concerns one such case, which got a
Speaker 1: good right up in the New York Times by Jennifer Pinkowski.
Speaker 1: So this study looked at one specific body exhumed from
Speaker 1: the buried ruins of Herculaneum, and this was a man
Speaker 1: who was believed to have been in his mid twenties,
Speaker 1: and he was found lying on a wooden bed in
Speaker 1: the colleg Gum august Stallium, which was a building on
Speaker 1: the main street of the town away from the waterfront.
Speaker 1: And the man's ash entombed remains were discovered sometime in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, but more recently researchers were able to
Speaker 1: extract a strange object from inside the dead man's head.
Speaker 1: And it is a warped, black, shiny fragment of glassy material.
Speaker 1: What is it? Well, I mean, if if one worked
Speaker 1: it to guess, you might think, well, this must be
Speaker 1: a piece of you know, volcanic shrapnel, something that you know,
Speaker 1: flying through the air and become it gets embedded in
Speaker 1: the skull, right sure. And when I was looking at
Speaker 1: images of the fragment, I was thinking exactly along those lines,
Speaker 1: because it reminded me a bit of the appearance of
Speaker 1: tech tits, which are these gravel sized pieces of natural
Speaker 1: glass that are formed from terrestrial material, including things like sand,
Speaker 1: which get rapidly superheated to the melting point during meteorite impacts. So,
Speaker 1: like you know, a meteor hits the surface, it kicks
Speaker 1: up a lot of stuff is some of it quickly
Speaker 1: melts and turns into glass. And natural impact glass is amazing.
Speaker 1: I think we talked about it a bit in our
Speaker 1: episode about the Kabba Um but but yeah, just to
Speaker 1: imagine that, like an object falling from space hits the
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth, throws up this big explosion of debris,
Speaker 1: and some of that debris gets so hot from the
Speaker 1: impact it turns into a shower of glass. So anyway,
Speaker 1: the images of this object extract it from the man's
Speaker 1: head look kind of like tech tits or kind of
Speaker 1: like obsidian. But it also has this crazy complicated shape
Speaker 1: and texture with these sharp hooks and crags and little
Speaker 1: rounded divots as if created by frozen bubbles. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: the authors of this study believe the evidence tells us
Speaker 1: what the glassy material is. It's vitrified brain tissue, human
Speaker 1: brain turned into glass. Hence the name of the study.
Speaker 1: Heat induced brain vitrification from the vesuvious eruption in CE
Speaker 1: seventy nine uh and is summarized in Pinkowski's article. According
Speaker 1: to pure Paolo Patrona, who is a forensic anthropologist at
Speaker 1: the University Federico, the second of Naples and the first
Speaker 1: author on the study, again, the man's brain quote turned
Speaker 1: to glass as a result of high heat from the
Speaker 1: pyroclastic flow, and the victim's skull exploded. Now, this is
Speaker 1: not actually the first case of research indicating that heat
Speaker 1: from the volcanic eruption caused people's heads to explode. That
Speaker 1: that's the thing that had been established by some previous
Speaker 1: research right. In fact, one of the older episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, I think titled stuff that
Speaker 1: will literally blow your mind. Well, that's one of the
Speaker 1: things we mentioned as being something that could actually make
Speaker 1: your your head pop, would be becoming caught in say
Speaker 1: a pyroclastic flow like this. Yeah, not not to be
Speaker 1: too grim, but I mean I think of the comparison
Speaker 1: to like when we've discussed our problems microwaving butter, where
Speaker 1: there's like too much vapor formation, very rapidly rapid temperature
Speaker 1: change like that. Yeah. So, to quote some text from
Speaker 1: the study itself, and this was quoted secondarily from the
Speaker 1: BBC quote the detection of glassy material from the victim's head,
Speaker 1: of proteins expressed in the human brain, and if fatty
Speaker 1: acids found in human hair indicates the thermally induced preservation
Speaker 1: of vitrified human brain tissue. So first you'd have extreme
Speaker 1: radiant heat which would pretty much instantly ignite fat in
Speaker 1: the body and vapor rise fluid content and body tissues.
Speaker 1: What kind of heat are we talking about? Well, analysis
Speaker 1: of the charred wood nearby shows temperatures right around the
Speaker 1: man probably reached to something like five hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius, which is over nine hundred and sixty degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: which I believe is hotter than the average surface temperature
Speaker 1: on the planet Venus. Uh. So we're we're in extreme
Speaker 1: territory here and uh And though I should say that
Speaker 1: not all experts are convinced that the black glass is
Speaker 1: truly the man's brain, because Pinkowski Uh in her article
Speaker 1: for The Times, also quote somebody named Christina Kilgrove, who
Speaker 1: is a bioarchaeologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill,
Speaker 1: who's done firsthand research on Vesuvius and of the brain
Speaker 1: to glass study. She says, quote, while their analysis is intriguing.
Speaker 1: I do not think they've proved its human brain material,
Speaker 1: nor nor have they ruled out other origins. The fatty
Speaker 1: acids they identified are typical of vegetable or animal fat
Speaker 1: or hair. So apparently, you know, once you start achieving
Speaker 1: temperatures that potentially turn all kinds of organic material into glass,
Speaker 1: you create some room for confusion. Maybe this is some
Speaker 1: kind of other organic material that terrified, right, And and
Speaker 1: then again this is like these are special circumstances to
Speaker 1: create this these forensic remains, so it's difficult to compare
Speaker 1: these to other cases. Now, that's not the only study
Speaker 1: to come out recently about grim death scenes in these towns.
Speaker 1: There was another one I was looking at that was
Speaker 1: revising some earlier research about how some people had died
Speaker 1: when their their remains were found within these stone houses
Speaker 1: that were along the shores at Herculaneum that were sort
Speaker 1: of known as the boat houses, to appear that people
Speaker 1: died crowded inside. I think they had probably crowded into
Speaker 1: the buildings for shelter. The buildings got closed up and
Speaker 1: then got superheated, and the question was how did the
Speaker 1: people die inside? And again it's a very grim scene.
Speaker 1: But it looks like it's sort of turned. The buildings
Speaker 1: provided some insulation from the flow of what was happening outside.
Speaker 1: I'd but just gradually heated up and sort of worked
Speaker 1: like an oven. It's kind of horrible to imagine. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, they they managed to avoid like instant cooking,
Speaker 1: but instead got slightly more gradual cooking. Now his luck
Speaker 1: would habit there was. There was another very recent bit
Speaker 1: of news concerning the eruption of the Suvious. In January,
Speaker 1: a number of news sources ran a story about the
Speaker 1: possible discovery of Plenty the Elder's skull. What yes, um
Speaker 1: in one of the better red ups that the one
Speaker 1: I was looking at, in fact, was Katherine J. Woo's
Speaker 1: This two thousand year old skull may belong to Plenty
Speaker 1: of the Elder, published on smithsonian dot Com. Okay, what's
Speaker 1: the case here? Alright, So this, this latest wrinkle in
Speaker 1: the story comes via Italian researchers regarding one of some
Speaker 1: seventy skeletons buried together in the aftermath of the eruption.
Speaker 1: So this particular body that they're looking at, or really
Speaker 1: particularly particularly we're dealing with a skull and job on uh.
Speaker 1: They were found to have the body that it's associated with,
Speaker 1: found to have heavy or heavily ornamented short sword in
Speaker 1: its possession, and jewels, all of this becoming of a
Speaker 1: person of means. Perhaps they speculate a high ranking naval officer. Now,
Speaker 1: these remains were unearthed about a hundred years ago, and
Speaker 1: engineer Gennero Mathrone theorized that this might be Plenty Uh,
Speaker 1: but there was no way to really explore this any further. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just kind of circumstance, like, hey, we
Speaker 1: found a this this body looks like it was somebody
Speaker 1: of of means. The most famous person of means to
Speaker 1: have we know died uh in the eruption of Vesuvius
Speaker 1: is of course Plenty of the elder. So he's thought,
Speaker 1: I think this might be him. So fast forward to
Speaker 1: the twenty one century and the skull and the jaw
Speaker 1: are now in the possession of Rome's Museum of the
Speaker 1: History of the Art of Medicine, and using DNA sequencing technology,
Speaker 1: researchers found that it was the skull of Quote, a
Speaker 1: man who could trace some of his lineage to Italy
Speaker 1: and who likely died in his forties or fifties. Now
Speaker 1: Plenty would have been fifty six, so it's possible. The jaw,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, turned out to be from a
Speaker 1: different individual of North African heritage. Okay, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: even from the same head as to the rest of
Speaker 1: the skull. So all of this is still very uncertain.
Speaker 1: This is not a this is not They're not really
Speaker 1: hitting it out of the park with this one. I
Speaker 1: think you can fairly say, yes, it sounds possible that
Speaker 1: this particular skull could have belonged to Plenty of the
Speaker 1: elder But narrowing it down to just a you know,
Speaker 1: a man who could trace some of his lineage to
Speaker 1: Italy and who likely died in his forties or fifties,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they're going to be other individuals in
Speaker 1: that category that died with the eruption of Vesuvius. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is interesting, but yeah, I'm I'm far from convinced.
Speaker 1: So again to go over to the evidence, he would
Speaker 1: have been in the right age bracket, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people would have been. He would have been an
Speaker 1: Italian man, but a lot of people there would have been,
Speaker 1: and he had some he had some possessions indicating that
Speaker 1: he was rich, like an ornamented sword and jewels. But again,
Speaker 1: so the argument is like, well, this was the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that you might expect to find upon a
Speaker 1: naval officer, to to find upon you know, somebody like
Speaker 1: Plenty of the Elder. But that's about as far as
Speaker 1: we can really go with it. Yeah, uh yeah. This
Speaker 1: reminds me of other cases where we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show before where people kind of like, you're so
Speaker 1: eager to take one fact or character or place from
Speaker 1: a historical narrative and try to connect it with physical
Speaker 1: artifacts on on often a very tenuous basis. Like I
Speaker 1: remember in our episode about Lot's Wife where we discussed
Speaker 1: the Dead Sea region and the tendency to take a
Speaker 1: rock or salt formation, and people would say, that's a
Speaker 1: Lot's wife, um, and like even so, even if you
Speaker 1: were someone who believed the you know, destruction of Ottoman
Speaker 1: Gomora story as as history, and believe the whole Lot's
Speaker 1: of Wife thing, why would you expect an individual rock
Speaker 1: you come across to actually be her? Right? Yeah, The
Speaker 1: idea is of course endlessly attractive to be able to
Speaker 1: have this physical proof of Plenty of the Elder and
Speaker 1: individual who factors so heavily into this particular historical narrative.
Speaker 1: But also it is just such an uh an important
Speaker 1: figure in the you know, the historical writings. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it speaks to a kind of human tendency of
Speaker 1: like the characters we know from literary sources, whether it's
Speaker 1: history or mythology. They're like friends and you know, the
Speaker 1: same way that you walk through a crowd and you
Speaker 1: yearn to recognize people. You know, you see somebody and like, oh,
Speaker 1: is that Jeff, No it's not him, but your your
Speaker 1: brain went there for a second, is that plenty Skull? Oh?
Speaker 1: Wait what it might be somebody else, But still it
Speaker 1: feels it feels special for a second there, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: So I guess i'd say the evidence here not even
Speaker 1: close to decisive, But if you want to imagine maybe
Speaker 1: it's plenty Skull, I guess there's no harm in that,
Speaker 1: right and now. And on the same hand, I don't
Speaker 1: to criticize this more recent research because because clearly they
Speaker 1: were they were following up on this much earlier speculation
Speaker 1: where this goes like I think it's plenty and they said, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's apply some science to this. Let's what we
Speaker 1: can we can discern from the bone of the skull itself,
Speaker 1: and yeah, this is what they figured out. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can find out more that's either consistent or not consistent
Speaker 1: with what somebody has already claimed. Yeah, and if they
Speaker 1: had found that it was, you know, the skull of
Speaker 1: a of a woman in her eighties, then it probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been Plenty, right, Or if the the the
Speaker 1: entire like the skull and the job bone had both
Speaker 1: turned out to have North African origin, that would have
Speaker 1: also been a firmer. No, So instead we just have
Speaker 1: a lingering maybe. All right, on that note, we're going
Speaker 1: to take the possible skull of Plenty of the elder
Speaker 1: and we're gonna place it up on the shelf, and
Speaker 1: we're going to drink coffee from it. Yes, and we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but we will be
Speaker 1: right back and we will continue to discuss the lessons
Speaker 1: of Vesuvius. Alright, we're back. So there are all these
Speaker 1: genres of things that archaeologists have uncovered at at the
Speaker 1: settlements that were ruined by the eruption of Vesuvius, especially
Speaker 1: like Pompeii and Herculaneum, and there's no way for us
Speaker 1: to talk about all of the discoveries. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are just things about, like, you know, everyday Roman life,
Speaker 1: you know, the way the houses are preserved, things about
Speaker 1: how the kitchens would have run, and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because you have all the stuff still in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things about the past that and then
Speaker 1: we've touched on this plenty of times before, is you know,
Speaker 1: it's the everyday stuff that is not always preserved in
Speaker 1: say the history books or and you know, religious art
Speaker 1: or what have you. And and that's often the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing, like how did the common people live? How
Speaker 1: what did people eat? What did they drink? Well, how
Speaker 1: healthy were they? But like the common information like that
Speaker 1: is not the kind of stuff that is usually thought
Speaker 1: notable to be recorded by historians of the time because
Speaker 1: common life is not interesting to them at least because
Speaker 1: it's common, might be interesting to us for which it
Speaker 1: is unusual and unknown. Instead, the things that historians are
Speaker 1: likely to record are the unusual events, you know, the
Speaker 1: wars and everything like that. Yeah, yeah, the the the
Speaker 1: the dramatic moments, etcetera. So or and indeed, with the
Speaker 1: with Vesuvius and its eruption, like you know, that's we
Speaker 1: have this wonderful account that survived and provides all these
Speaker 1: these details about the this, the unnatural horror that fall,
Speaker 1: the falls, the cities that exist in the area surrounding
Speaker 1: the Volcanic mountain. But you know, Plenty is not taking
Speaker 1: a lot of time to talk about what he ate
Speaker 1: for breakfast that morning, right, so I think he does
Speaker 1: say his uncle had a light luncheon. You don't say
Speaker 1: what it was. But one of the amazing genres of
Speaker 1: things that archaeologists have uncovered at Pompeii that is definitely
Speaker 1: worth looking up if you haven't seen it, is this
Speaker 1: some of the surviving original artwork, which in some cases
Speaker 1: is preserved in a strikingly vivid and colorful way. Oh yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: these are definitely worth looking up. And some of them
Speaker 1: are you know, it's it's one of these things where
Speaker 1: it makes you really think about trying and put yourself
Speaker 1: in the shoes of the of these people who lived
Speaker 1: in and so there are things that make perfect sense, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you'd want to live in a uh in
Speaker 1: a in a space that is uh you know, has
Speaker 1: rich decoration. But then you ask, well, why this painting,
Speaker 1: why this particular fresco et cetera. Well, I'm thinking if
Speaker 1: it happened to my house and future archaeologists were digging
Speaker 1: it up, they'd be like, what does it mean that
Speaker 1: he had a poster for the film Attack of the
Speaker 1: Crab Monsters on his wall. Clearly he thought it was
Speaker 1: a great film, or he he realized that giant psychic
Speaker 1: crabs were holy creatures and were to be venerated in
Speaker 1: the home as a kind of a household god. They
Speaker 1: might think this is a religious artifact. But so one
Speaker 1: of the fresco is that I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: was something I was just reading about from a site
Speaker 1: called Reggio five Reggio v. Uh assume that means five
Speaker 1: and not just the letter V, which is still under excavation.
Speaker 1: And this is a well preserved fresco that appears to
Speaker 1: have been in the basement of a large building, underneath
Speaker 1: the stairwell. I don't know if that contributed to how
Speaker 1: well it was preserved. It might have, might have, But
Speaker 1: it depicts the end of a fight between two gladiators
Speaker 1: of fighter types that we can actually identify based on
Speaker 1: their weapons in their armor in the painting. So one
Speaker 1: is of a type known as the Murmillo, and the
Speaker 1: other is a of a type known as the three
Speaker 1: X or the Thracian. So I was looking these up
Speaker 1: in a book called Gladiators at Pompeii by Luciana Jacobelli
Speaker 1: from two thousand three, and she writes of the mrmalo
Speaker 1: that had so the name of the mrmalo type fighter
Speaker 1: originally comes from a marine fish, the murma, which had
Speaker 1: an image of this fish was drawn on this type
Speaker 1: of fighter's helmet. So this fighter would have a very
Speaker 1: scary looking helmet actually. So it's got a visor that
Speaker 1: closed is over the face, and it's got kind of
Speaker 1: a chain pattern, like chain link pattern across the visor um.
Speaker 1: And then of course it depicts this fish. And then
Speaker 1: the gladiator to fight bare chested or sometimes we're something
Speaker 1: known as the subla gaculum uh. And then he'd have
Speaker 1: his right arm protected by something called a manica, which
Speaker 1: I've seen depicted as like a kind of a sleeve
Speaker 1: of padding laced up around the right arm, which was
Speaker 1: the sword arm. So you'd hold your short sword called
Speaker 1: a gladius in the right arm with that laced up
Speaker 1: with this padding. And then in the other hand you
Speaker 1: would have a rectangular shield called a screwed them that's
Speaker 1: about one meter high. And as we've discussed in the
Speaker 1: past talking about gladiators on the show Roaming Gladiatorial Combat.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not unfair to compare it to the
Speaker 1: film adaptation of The Running Man. You know, it's there's
Speaker 1: theatrics here, there's mythic symbology involved here. Uh so it's
Speaker 1: a it's it's not merely there's there's a mix of
Speaker 1: a function but also just mythic form and entertainment. Yes,
Speaker 1: and there's another element of it that comes in, which
Speaker 1: is just like ethnic representations, like the Romans would have
Speaker 1: some fighter types that were supposed to represent sort of
Speaker 1: like exotic foreign types of warriors who the fighters might
Speaker 1: not necessarily actually be from those regions. But say the
Speaker 1: other fighter in this not the Mrmala, but the Thracian,
Speaker 1: you know, so that's like a type of person. And
Speaker 1: so this is supposed to be modeled after the idea
Speaker 1: of a Thracian warrior. I'm well, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it would actually in any accurate way represent what the
Speaker 1: Thracians were Like. Yeah, I mean this is actually something
Speaker 1: you see reflected even in some I think contemporary examples,
Speaker 1: but definitely in twentieth century examples of professional wrestling, yes,
Speaker 1: where various. And this is something you would see in
Speaker 1: different parts in pretty much everywhere that pro wrestling was
Speaker 1: slash is popular. So talking about Mexico, Japan, the United States, uh,
Speaker 1: those three anyway, you would often see depictions of other
Speaker 1: nationalities UH in different enemy roles. And of course you
Speaker 1: see all manner of you know, xenophobia and UH and
Speaker 1: racial stereotypes, the cultural stereotypes embodied in those forms. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know a funny thing that I was reading
Speaker 1: about with the Roman gladiators that like sometimes gladiator types
Speaker 1: would go out of style as as certain ethnic groups
Speaker 1: were more comprehensively incorporated into the empire. So like earlier
Speaker 1: on you would have a type of fighter that was
Speaker 1: basically the gallic fighter, you know, like this is our
Speaker 1: this is our parody of the UH, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you want to call it, you know, their parody
Speaker 1: or their understanding of like the the ethnic Gaul as
Speaker 1: a warrior as Gaul. Then goal today modern like France
Speaker 1: basically became a more fully incorporated part of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: That type of fighter fell out of fashion and was
Speaker 1: replaced by representations of ethnic groups that were still more
Speaker 1: considered outsiders or there's Yeah, it's a it's an interesting
Speaker 1: way to think about the you know, that space where
Speaker 1: where sport and war meet, and and they meet more
Speaker 1: directly in gladiatorial combat obviously, but you see this in
Speaker 1: other types of sporting entertainment out there, even like full
Speaker 1: on team sports. Uh. You know, there's this idea that uh,
Speaker 1: instead of two nations going to war, they go to game. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that you know, that's ultimately part of the spirit
Speaker 1: of even the Olympics, which are again often uh you know,
Speaker 1: held up as an example of nations coming together in
Speaker 1: peace and uh. And I think certainly certainly fulfills that
Speaker 1: that need for the international community. And yet at the
Speaker 1: same time, it is about my country and your country
Speaker 1: going head to head and we're going to see which
Speaker 1: one has the has the right stuff to to emerge
Speaker 1: victorious at the end. Yeah. But at least in the
Speaker 1: case of the Olympics, it's like people actually from the
Speaker 1: original countries coming together to compete. It would be a
Speaker 1: different thing if you were just like wherever somebody actually
Speaker 1: came from, you had them depicting a person from a
Speaker 1: certain country, and then in that you would see more
Speaker 1: of a parallel in say twentieth century American professional wrestling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So jacob Elli writes about this other type, that the
Speaker 1: second type in the Fresco, the Thracian quote. The Thracians
Speaker 1: armor included a small, strongly convex squarish shield known as
Speaker 1: a parmula a manica. Again this is an arm bands
Speaker 1: like this like padding laced up around the sword arm
Speaker 1: uh and two high leggings, often decorated up to the knee.
Speaker 1: The weapon most typical of this gladiator was a short sword,
Speaker 1: either curved or angled, called a ska, so like you
Speaker 1: have a little kind of curved scimitar thing. And she
Speaker 1: writes that even the helmet was unusual, usually be decorated
Speaker 1: with this tall decorated crest. So in the Fresco, it's
Speaker 1: a battle scene, and it's at the end of the battle,
Speaker 1: and the Mermalo fighter stands victorious, holding his sword in
Speaker 1: his right hand and holding his shield high in his left,
Speaker 1: and the Thracian is bent over badly wounded, bleeding from
Speaker 1: wounds on his wrist, in his chest. He's disarmed, his
Speaker 1: shield is lying on the ground. Next to him, and
Speaker 1: he's making a sign with his left hand, and it's
Speaker 1: not clear exactly what that is, but some historians and
Speaker 1: archaeologists think that he's possibly appealing to the audience for
Speaker 1: mercy with this sign, and we don't know if the
Speaker 1: fight would have ended with mercy or execution. That's interesting
Speaker 1: because then it then also not not only you're wondering
Speaker 1: about what he's depicted in the art, but then why
Speaker 1: is it depicted, Like why is this image celebrated? Are
Speaker 1: we celebrating the presumably the valiant warrior that has fallen
Speaker 1: and is is appealing for for mercy, like saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: I put up a good fight, didn't you? And and
Speaker 1: maybe the people looking at the art can be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: even if you lose, if you put up a good fight,
Speaker 1: there's there's grace and honor in that. Or is it
Speaker 1: about the other guy, like yeah, defeat the other of
Speaker 1: combating at all costs, and maybe they'll beg for mercy,
Speaker 1: but you still want right is the purpose us of
Speaker 1: the artwork to be like look at this thration loser? Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And according it gets even more interesting because, according to
Speaker 1: Massimo Osana, director general of Pompei's Archaeological Park. This building
Speaker 1: was probably both a tavern and a brothel that was
Speaker 1: frequented by local gladiators. So Reggio five is very near
Speaker 1: to another side that's believed to have been a barracks
Speaker 1: for the fighters, So the gladiators would have had their
Speaker 1: barracks nearby. They would go for I guess recreation at
Speaker 1: this tavern and brothel. And inside the tavern and brothel
Speaker 1: where the gladiators go, there are scenes on the walls
Speaker 1: of gladiators killing each other, And it's like, is that
Speaker 1: what they would have wanted to see? Is that what
Speaker 1: they just had to put up with? Yeah? Like who
Speaker 1: who decorated this space? I don't. It's so interesting trying
Speaker 1: to understand what would motivate people to to decorate buildings
Speaker 1: in certain ways in the ancient world. You like, you
Speaker 1: can't again the same thing we were talking about, like, like,
Speaker 1: how would a future civilization understand the spirit with which
Speaker 1: I hang up a Poe stir for a trashy nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties sci fi movie, Like do they like do they
Speaker 1: have the level of complexity and imagining? My mind that says, okay,
Speaker 1: this had something to do with like love of horror movies,
Speaker 1: but also a sense of irony and you know, like
Speaker 1: or would they just have to assume I guess this
Speaker 1: is just like a religious artifact or something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some of there's Yeah, there's so many generalities to
Speaker 1: potentially apply to that situation. And then and then it's
Speaker 1: going to get you know, very specific about the individual
Speaker 1: whose house it is. Of course, in this case, it
Speaker 1: is a you know, again more of a less a
Speaker 1: public space for the gladiators that are assembled there. But
Speaker 1: then you have to again question who decided that this
Speaker 1: is what should be on the wall, and then what
Speaker 1: is the intended meaning of that? Like what are they
Speaker 1: trying to enforce or celebrate? Right? Is it valiant? Is
Speaker 1: it funny? Is it honoring them? Is it scaring them?
Speaker 1: Like what if they put that that image up at
Speaker 1: work here, like would we take away from that? Or
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I don't know. Are they both podcasters?
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't know what's happening. So again,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be able to get into anywhere close
Speaker 1: to all the studies that discuss what daily life was
Speaker 1: like in Pompeii or Herculaneum prior to the eruption of
Speaker 1: Vesuvius and seventy nine CE. But but I do want
Speaker 1: to discuss just a few quick ones, and these are
Speaker 1: all relatively recent that shed some interesting light on everything.
Speaker 1: So the first one I want to talk about is
Speaker 1: a two thousand seventeen University of Southern Denmark study that
Speaker 1: looked at the drinking water situation for the Romans of
Speaker 1: Pompeii and they found that while yes, lead pipes which
Speaker 1: they used would sometimes poison the water, of the issue
Speaker 1: here is they would quickly calcify, so you would only
Speaker 1: be dealing with high toxicity levels after they've been initially
Speaker 1: installed or when you've had to make some repairs. H So,
Speaker 1: so the lad would from time to time poison you,
Speaker 1: but that the toxic chemical element antimony would have been
Speaker 1: more of a factor it was with the lead, and
Speaker 1: it was a more It was also more common in
Speaker 1: the groundwater, as is typical of areas of volcanic activity.
Speaker 1: So this would have, according to the researchers quote, lead
Speaker 1: to daily problems with vomiting, diarrhea, and liver and kidney
Speaker 1: dan So um, I mean, it's yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's terrific to imagine. But but but it does shed
Speaker 1: a little a little more light, like, what does it
Speaker 1: what does it mean to have amazing and really advanced
Speaker 1: plumbing in uh in seventy nine CE? While it probably
Speaker 1: meant being poisoned part of the time, especially in this area, Well,
Speaker 1: it makes me think. So Pompei is basically a rich town.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a resort region. A lot of successful
Speaker 1: elites lived there poisoning themselves with diarrhea pipes. And it
Speaker 1: reminds me of the raw water trend from a couple
Speaker 1: of years. I remember that a lot of like rich
Speaker 1: tech world kind of people decided they were going to
Speaker 1: pay fifteen dollars a gallon for untreated drinking water full
Speaker 1: of giardia. I haven't looked it up. Is that like,
Speaker 1: is that still a thing or did that go away?
Speaker 1: I hope it went away, but but I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll have to say, maybe we'll do an episode on that.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll get as a sponsor. Who knows. Um, Now,
Speaker 1: a couple of other study. Both of these other studies,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about our University of Cincinnati studies. UM, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a teams there that have have been working uh
Speaker 1: in POMPEII, and both of them have really concerned, like
Speaker 1: refuse what we can learn, not so much from the
Speaker 1: the artistry that has survived or the human remains that
Speaker 1: we can look at, but digging around in the trash,
Speaker 1: looking in the sewer pipes and trying to solve the
Speaker 1: riddle of you know what they ate, what they how
Speaker 1: they lived and uh and you know how they disposed
Speaker 1: of their trash. So there's two thousand and twelve University
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati study looked at a question that has come
Speaker 1: up in archaeology concerning trash uh in POMPEII. Why was
Speaker 1: there so much garbage littered among the tombs? So one
Speaker 1: theory was that we saw garbage dumb in tombs and
Speaker 1: a grave sites that had been damaged by previous earthquakes
Speaker 1: in the vicinity and therefore they had been abandoned. And
Speaker 1: since this was an abandoned you know, grave area that
Speaker 1: wasn't used anymore, people decided, what would just dump our
Speaker 1: trash here? Right? Yester year's graveyard is today's dump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we see shades of this in today's society. Right.
Speaker 1: You have you have, say a house that's under repair
Speaker 1: or it's you know, it's there's something there's nobody's living there.
Speaker 1: One person dumped some garbage there, and then suddenly other
Speaker 1: people were dumping old couches and what have you. And
Speaker 1: there may be signs to try and prevent people from
Speaker 1: doing it. But now this is a place where garbage accumulates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the RLO go three principle. You know, the Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: day masaker. Okay, is this from Alice's restaurant? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Or they find where you find garbage somewhere you figure
Speaker 1: that's where you put the other garbage on top. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's part of the human experience. However, in this
Speaker 1: particular study, Allison Emerson argued that the Romans of the
Speaker 1: time they simply had a more casual approach to trash.
Speaker 1: So she points out that there's no evidence for any
Speaker 1: kind of a centrally managed system for garbage disposal, and
Speaker 1: so life was probably just lived in close proximity to
Speaker 1: the refuse that created, especially in the alleys, the streets, roads, cemeteries,
Speaker 1: and tombs as well. Plus one thing that she drives
Speaker 1: home is that tombs at the time, like these were
Speaker 1: places you didn't want your tomb just today we think of, oh,
Speaker 1: where do I want to be buried? Where do want
Speaker 1: my remains to go? I wanted to be a nice,
Speaker 1: quiet place that occasionally be visited by children or families,
Speaker 1: but for the most part is just left to the
Speaker 1: squirrels and the birds. Uh So, Emmerson argues that this
Speaker 1: was not the Roman way you wanted to be remembered.
Speaker 1: Uh So, your tomb needed to be seen. Your tomb
Speaker 1: needed to be in a place that was going to
Speaker 1: be highly trafficked. Uh And so these tombs would have
Speaker 1: been high traffic spaces, which meant people would probably be
Speaker 1: littering everywhere, that they would be leaving graffiti, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: that was I mean, that was just part of it.
Speaker 1: Like this is, you want to be seen, you want
Speaker 1: to be remembered, you need to be in a living space.
Speaker 1: Living space means graffiti and garbage. Oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: common in the ancient world. It makes me think of
Speaker 1: the Chattelhoya situation, where people would literally bury the remains
Speaker 1: of their ancestors in the floor of the house where
Speaker 1: they lived. Yeah, you want to be near the living
Speaker 1: That's that's part of the whole equation here. And they
Speaker 1: would often keep body parts of that, like maybe keep
Speaker 1: their head covered in plaster just on the shelf. Now,
Speaker 1: another University of Cincinnati study came from and this one
Speaker 1: looked specifically at the drains, cisterns, and the trains of
Speaker 1: Pompeii to learn what people ate. And it's interesting we've
Speaker 1: we've talked about how yes, there were definitely some very wealthy,
Speaker 1: uh members of Roman society in the area. This was
Speaker 1: a very rich part of the Roman Empire. At the
Speaker 1: same time, there were, of course commoners, there were people
Speaker 1: lower down all on the socioeconomic spectrum. And so in
Speaker 1: looking at the the these remains, these vestiges of of
Speaker 1: the of these diets you were, they were able to
Speaker 1: find these clear socio economic divisions. So for instance, they
Speaker 1: looked at one area and they found grains, or they
Speaker 1: found the remnants of grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lintels, local
Speaker 1: fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of
Speaker 1: more expensive meat and salted fish that had been imported
Speaker 1: from Spain. And so this would have been you know, um,
Speaker 1: this would have been the the the food of of
Speaker 1: people lower down on the socioeconomic spectrum, the workers throughout
Speaker 1: the regular people, yeah, eating you know, the staples, but
Speaker 1: then occasionally having something a little more fancy. But then,
Speaker 1: of course there were the richer areas. UH. And here
Speaker 1: they found more imports from outside Italy, such as various shellfish,
Speaker 1: sea urchins, and I love this detail, even delicacies that
Speaker 1: included the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. And UH
Speaker 1: Professor Steven Ellis points out that the bone quote represents
Speaker 1: the height of exotic food and is underscored by the
Speaker 1: fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe
Speaker 1: bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy. So,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, the only bone from a
Speaker 1: giraffe ever found in Italy at the time, and it's
Speaker 1: in it's underneath the restaurant. Now, some of you might
Speaker 1: be wondering, Well, you might think to yourself, well, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't even occur to me to eat a giraffe, which
Speaker 1: is a giraffe taste like? Well, there's a wonderful article
Speaker 1: you should read on this. This was published in New
Speaker 1: York Magazine in februaryeen titled what does Giraffe Meat Taste Like?
Speaker 1: By Adam Martin and basically, UH, Martin says that, you know,
Speaker 1: descriptions are gonna vary, but on one hand, you'll see
Speaker 1: it described as a very tender meat that is served
Speaker 1: extra rare and it kind of melts in the mouth.
Speaker 1: Health Other accounts have said that it's an intensely flavored,
Speaker 1: lean meat like that of a tender horse, so like
Speaker 1: horse meat, except not as tough. And another source said
Speaker 1: that what that giraffe meat was tough and chewy but
Speaker 1: also flavorful. Now I would have guessed like tough and gamey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a wild animal. Yeah, this is not
Speaker 1: like the kind of the breeds of cattle that are
Speaker 1: bred for meat. Yeah. Yeah, I felt the same. And
Speaker 1: of course a big part of this too is like
Speaker 1: it's exotic, right, people, And this is the reason why
Speaker 1: rich Romans would have potentially ordered this in a menu.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do you have? What are your specials today? Well,
Speaker 1: we have the leg of a giraffe, you know, exciting.
Speaker 1: I've never had that before. I will try it and
Speaker 1: then I'll have some cost on how I respond to
Speaker 1: the taste exactly. Now, Martin does our drive home though
Speaker 1: that okay, Yes, there are examples of modern giraffe meat
Speaker 1: that have been obtained legally, uh, certain like from calling
Speaker 1: efforts in certain places. But if you but don't use
Speaker 1: this as license to go and try and obtain giraffe
Speaker 1: meat because it's also giraffe meed is gonna bring with
Speaker 1: it a high risk of being harvested unethically. So ultimately
Speaker 1: it's not worth it because it's not it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like it's gonna taste great, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: go around trying to order yourself up a leg of
Speaker 1: giraffe for the barbecue. Uh, if you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: contend with the fact that it might be obtained unethically.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many pounds of meat you get out
Speaker 1: of side of giraffe. I mean, it's it's quite a bit.
Speaker 1: This Uh, this article by Martin goes into that a bit.
Speaker 1: How sometimes they're poaching. There's there you'll see poaching of
Speaker 1: giraffes because if you land a giraffe, it's worth like
Speaker 1: it's as much meat as you would get from say,
Speaker 1: sell several say in Paula or gazelles or something. Um.
Speaker 1: That being said, it's going to be probably tough and weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now if you were one of those people thinking like
Speaker 1: it would never occur to you to eat a giraffe.
Speaker 1: I was thinking like that, this, this really indicates that
Speaker 1: you do not have a Roman elitement tality. Because we've
Speaker 1: discussed on the show several times. Uh, the Romans ate everything,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, look at this interesting exotic animal.
Speaker 1: Get the butcher knife. Uh. They were they were really like,
Speaker 1: let's try to eat that culture. Uh. And apparently another
Speaker 1: thing I was reading about is that they loved the
Speaker 1: rare delicacy of flamingo tongue. I was reading about this
Speaker 1: in Food of the Ancient World by Joan p Alcock,
Speaker 1: where she writes, quote, flamingo's tongue was a great delicacy.
Speaker 1: Emperor Vitellius in a d. Sixty nine presented the goddess
Speaker 1: Minerva with a dish containing peacock brains, pike livers, pheasant brains,
Speaker 1: and flamingo tongues, which he afterward ate, Which is great.
Speaker 1: You know, you got to present it to Minerva and
Speaker 1: then you know, chow down yourself because Minerva is not
Speaker 1: going to eat it. Now. I feel I love two
Speaker 1: minds on all of this, because on one hand, yes,
Speaker 1: they're all these wonderfully really exotic sounding things with the
Speaker 1: Romans eight. And yet if you had to decipher, like
Speaker 1: which which menu of possibilities is more exotic and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it depends on on wider you know, geographic sourcing.
Speaker 1: Is it this restaurant in Pompeii where the giraffe leg
Speaker 1: was was served? Is it even the the available menu,
Speaker 1: say it even any given time in Rome itself? Or
Speaker 1: is it what you might get at the large whole
Speaker 1: foods or armies or what's the restaurant with the colossal
Speaker 1: menu cheesecake factory? You know, like like if you like
Speaker 1: trace the origins of all those things and see it
Speaker 1: as see cheesecake Factory as a restaurant of empire, is
Speaker 1: it ultimately a larger empire by far than that of
Speaker 1: the the even like the richest table setting in the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire? Well, I mean you clearly drive home that
Speaker 1: like some of our judgments about these kinds of things
Speaker 1: are completely arbitrary, you know, about like what is an
Speaker 1: exotic extravagant food and what is just normal food? And
Speaker 1: the Roman poet Marshall was actually he lamented the idea
Speaker 1: of eating flamingo tongues. I don't know why exactly. It's
Speaker 1: it's what's so bad about flamingo tongues compared to the
Speaker 1: other stuff. But he was generally attacking, you know, like, uh,
Speaker 1: certain Roman elites as decadent, you know, decadent epicureans or whatever.
Speaker 1: But there's this couplet that Marshall wrote that I found
Speaker 1: translated in a book called The Flamingo Smile by Stephen
Speaker 1: Jay Gould, And so Marshall wrote, my red wing gives
Speaker 1: me my name, but epicures regard my tongue is tasty,
Speaker 1: but what if my tongue could sing? Well? I think
Speaker 1: it sounds like what he's getting at is is a
Speaker 1: basic truth. The flamingo is a beautiful animal that we
Speaker 1: love to look at. It is it is different from
Speaker 1: other varieties of bird that we might behold. And and
Speaker 1: that's why generally you go to a zoo, what's the
Speaker 1: first thing you see? Flamingos there? Like this the standard
Speaker 1: greeters at. It's so many different zoological parks. I mean,
Speaker 1: flamingos are weird. They are beautiful, like I the way
Speaker 1: they eat with their heads upside down, you know. In
Speaker 1: this book, Gould goes on to write about the about
Speaker 1: how the flamingos tongue has special texture and taste because
Speaker 1: of its unique evolutionary function that unlike most birds, flamingos
Speaker 1: are actually filter feeders. They're more like billen whales, and
Speaker 1: they dip their heads into the water turned down too,
Speaker 1: and they open up their mouths and they've got these little, uh,
Speaker 1: these hair like things called lamlay. And then the tongue here,
Speaker 1: the part that the emperor would eat. It serves as
Speaker 1: a kind of pump to like rapidly suck water in
Speaker 1: and out of the mouth through the filters. And this
Speaker 1: pulls in all the you know, weird little bits and
Speaker 1: life forms that the flamingos ultimately survived based on. But
Speaker 1: that it's this strange morphology that apparently made it so
Speaker 1: delicious to uh, to Roman epicures like Vitelius. Well, you
Speaker 1: know it's I guess it's possible it had a special
Speaker 1: taste or special texture, uh that that made people want
Speaker 1: to eat it. But I you at the impression, it's
Speaker 1: mostly like here is a unique animal. Uh, serve it
Speaker 1: to me. Well, I just want to say, as an addendum,
Speaker 1: Vitelius did not last long. He he was only emperor
Speaker 1: for less than a year. Uh. He lost a power
Speaker 1: struggle to Vespasian, was dragged out of hiding by a
Speaker 1: mob of his enemies and beheaded in the streets of Rome.
Speaker 1: And uh, I attached a picture for you to look at.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen this artwork, but it's
Speaker 1: called Vitelius dragged through the streets of Rome by the
Speaker 1: Populace by George Rosia Gross. He looks like he's having
Speaker 1: a bad day. Yeah, yeah, that is a yeah, that's that.
Speaker 1: That is a bad day for sure. But maybe he
Speaker 1: should have served giraffe to Minerva instead and his luck
Speaker 1: could have changed. Well, I think even today it would
Speaker 1: probably be just political death for most politicians to to
Speaker 1: suddenly publicly eat the tongue of a of a flamingo,
Speaker 1: or or eat a big chunk of giraffes at the
Speaker 1: Iowa State Fair eating fried flamingo tongue on a stick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, okay, and now I'm second guessing myself.
Speaker 1: But all right, on that lovely note, we will take
Speaker 1: one more break, but when we come back, we will
Speaker 1: return more specifically two volcanoes. Alright, we're back, So we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. How the slopes of Vesuvius, you know, once
Speaker 1: more are home to vineyards and and uh in human populations.
Speaker 1: The area around Vesuvius is highly urbanized today, but authorities
Speaker 1: have established a red zone a Zona Rosa, to be
Speaker 1: evacuated if signs indicate that an eruption is likely Sona rosa.
Speaker 1: That sounds so nice, yeah, I mean, or or it
Speaker 1: sounds like like a horror movie, doesn't it like Origento
Speaker 1: kind of cold, be a jello like Lazona Rosa. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the general consensus is that if the signs were to
Speaker 1: prevent themselves, we'd have about two weeks notice on an eruption.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot has been written about, like
Speaker 1: the the actual preparedness in place for an event like this.
Speaker 1: So Lee Marshall wrote about this topic in a September
Speaker 1: seen article for The Telegraph, pointing out that again at
Speaker 1: the time, seven hundred thousand people lived in this red
Speaker 1: zone of Vesuvius, and while there there was a finalized
Speaker 1: evacuation plan and it was still in the process of
Speaker 1: coming online in six uh. But according to to one
Speaker 1: Francisco Emilio Barelli Regional Council for the Green Party, quoted
Speaker 1: in a November two thousand nineteen euronews dot com article
Speaker 1: exercises regarding evacuation, we're no longer being carried out. And
Speaker 1: in that article, Filipo Pultronieri pointed out that other urban
Speaker 1: areas near volcanic areas are also highlighted for insufficient planning,
Speaker 1: namely the island vacation destination of Iscia and UH and
Speaker 1: also of Flagrian Fields, which is another another area in
Speaker 1: that region that is known for its volcanic activity. Lee Marshall,
Speaker 1: writing at the time, pointed out quote the notorious ss
Speaker 1: TO six S eight dual carriageway between Naples and the
Speaker 1: Sarentine Peninsula, design not only to relieve congestion but also
Speaker 1: provide an escape route from the volcano, is still not complete.
Speaker 1: Construction of the road started incredibly in the eighties. So
Speaker 1: in that article, Marshall contended that the locals were more
Speaker 1: inclined to take solace in religious faith than in emergency planning. Now,
Speaker 1: this was obviously written a few years ago, and I
Speaker 1: was looking around trying to find any confirmation that ss
Speaker 1: TO has actually been completed and is, you know, in operation.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any articles about it. Uh some of
Speaker 1: them were, you know, in Italian somewhere translated into English.
Speaker 1: So if we have any Italian or Italian speaking Italian
Speaker 1: reading listeners out there who want to set the record straight, uh,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. But based on
Speaker 1: I was looking around, like Google Maps. If you look
Speaker 1: a Google Map inquiry for a route between Naples and
Speaker 1: the Sarentine Peninsula, it initially only provides a route via
Speaker 1: SS three, sixty six and forty five which travels right
Speaker 1: between the ocean and the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. So like,
Speaker 1: not a good place to be. So that sounds like
Speaker 1: a roughly herculaneum zone. Yeah yeah, like and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be between Vesuvius and the ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is definitely in the red zone. Um.
Speaker 1: But the more I, when I look closely, it looked
Speaker 1: like you could actually it would route you on s
Speaker 1: S two if you dragged the route around with your
Speaker 1: mouse cursor. So I personally cannot tell to what degree
Speaker 1: like that is now a valid option to deal with
Speaker 1: the evacuation. Okay, we have had an official Google Maps
Speaker 1: fail getting out, but but to whatever degree you know,
Speaker 1: this is finally in place etcetera. Like what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to to drive home from those articles that I that
Speaker 1: I cited there is that you know, we still live,
Speaker 1: We still have people living in high concentration in areas
Speaker 1: near active volcanoes. And yes, even with modern science, we
Speaker 1: may have again two weeks notice on a pending eruption,
Speaker 1: but that's two weeks to sometimes move a very large
Speaker 1: number of people out of the danger zone. It, I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes you start to wonder more broadly about like
Speaker 1: what are the kinds of risks that human settlements should
Speaker 1: be tolerant of, because it's clear, you know, they're all
Speaker 1: kinds of places where there are there are different risks
Speaker 1: of natural disasters that are going to come with different severity,
Speaker 1: different frequency. I mean, I don't know how exactly you
Speaker 1: compare say like densely populated areas around a volcano that
Speaker 1: you know that sometimes will erupt, hasn't had a majorly
Speaker 1: destructive eruption, and while but you know probably is at
Speaker 1: some point in the indeterminate future going to erupt again. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you know that would be massively destructive versus I
Speaker 1: don't know, like having civilizations in like a tornado zone
Speaker 1: where each you know each tornado is that tornadoes are
Speaker 1: going to be more regular, They're gonna happen every year.
Speaker 1: Each one is less destructive than a volcanic eruption. But
Speaker 1: they're just coming in these constant waves, and you just
Speaker 1: hope one doesn't come near your house. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: you have to what degree are you leaning on, um,
Speaker 1: emergency preparation or even again religious faith to deal with
Speaker 1: that probability? Yeah, I guess I just mean I don't
Speaker 1: know how to do the math on you know, how
Speaker 1: to compare those types of risks. Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a big one, of course, is residing in coastal regions
Speaker 1: that are gonna be affected by hurricanes, you know, and
Speaker 1: in some cases the I've read that the best advice
Speaker 1: is like, well, if your home is destroyed, like do
Speaker 1: not rebuild it. You need to move further inland. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know there there's a version of this for
Speaker 1: for various different environments around the world. I mean, even
Speaker 1: places where the risk is not as notably catastrophic. If
Speaker 1: it's just say, and a region that is highly susceptible
Speaker 1: to the ravages of drought, you know, uh, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look is good on a painting the drought, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: reaking habit compared to that of a volcano. But still
Speaker 1: it can be extremely deadly, and it has proven deadly
Speaker 1: many times in the past. So Vesuvius has been described
Speaker 1: as the most densely populated area of active volcanism in
Speaker 1: the world. But here are a few others of note. Um.
Speaker 1: One is Cotapaxi, Ecuador, which is actually a volcano I
Speaker 1: hope to see in the in the not too distant future.
Speaker 1: Uh three hundred thousand people. I've also seen it listed
Speaker 1: his three hundred twenty five thousand live relatively closely nearby.
Speaker 1: A last eruption was and it was mostly steam. But
Speaker 1: it is an area of a frequent discussion with these
Speaker 1: and but on top of that, it is also supposed
Speaker 1: to be just a very beautiful location and fun fact,
Speaker 1: Alexander von Humboldt attempted to climbate in eighteen o two. Okay,
Speaker 1: I must uh that must be described in that book
Speaker 1: about him. I like what I recommend of this in
Speaker 1: our summer reading many years ago, The Invention of Nature
Speaker 1: by Andrea Wolf fantastic book about Alexander von Humboldt. If
Speaker 1: if you haven't read it, you should all right, here's
Speaker 1: another one, Katla, Iceland. This is near the town of
Speaker 1: the Vic and it last erupted in nineteen eighteen. Katla
Speaker 1: is even larger than e Figilogical, which disrupted European flights
Speaker 1: when it erupted in So I've been to the town
Speaker 1: of Vic. I stayed in a hotel near Vick one time,
Speaker 1: and I remember having a conversation with the guy. The
Speaker 1: hotel I think was basically this guy's house and it's
Speaker 1: sort of been expanded out to have hotel rooms in it. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I remember talking to this guy who ran the place,
Speaker 1: and he was like showing us a map of the
Speaker 1: area on the wall and just sort of talking about like,
Speaker 1: you know how, yeah, here's what happened the last time
Speaker 1: the volcano erupted, and it will erupt again at some point.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was strange. I mean, he he
Speaker 1: must have just had a different attitude about this different
Speaker 1: emotional relationship to the idea of his home being destroyed
Speaker 1: by a volcano, because he didn't seem all that concerned
Speaker 1: about it. He was just sort of matter of factly
Speaker 1: explaining that at some point there will be a geological
Speaker 1: event that will completely destroy his home. And uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know if his matter of factness was just something
Speaker 1: about this guy in particular, if more people would seem
Speaker 1: more upset by the idea, or if like, living in
Speaker 1: a place like that kind of forces you to make
Speaker 1: peace with it in a way that I don't know,
Speaker 1: you're just like, yeah, it will happen at some point, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean probably a little bit of both, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A few other places of note. There's uh uh Sakurajima, Japan,
Speaker 1: near the city of Kegoshima. That's a six hundred thousand people.
Speaker 1: There's Mount Etna that we mentioned earlier. Then there's also Papocotta, Petal, Mexico,
Speaker 1: and this is near Mexico City itself. And of course
Speaker 1: one of the big concerns with all these is not
Speaker 1: you know, it's not necessarily it's not only who are
Speaker 1: in the danger zone, but then having to deal with
Speaker 1: people from the danger zone, refugee crisis, et cetera. Now
Speaker 1: you might be wondering, you know, why do we find
Speaker 1: so many people living near some of these volcanoes. So
Speaker 1: we've already touched, you know, on the the advantages of
Speaker 1: say the volcanic soil and all and the geological advantages
Speaker 1: to some of these locations. And you know, again on
Speaker 1: one levels, just part of the human experience, part of
Speaker 1: living on a volatile planet where various regions offer threats
Speaker 1: like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquake drouts, blizzards and more. Um. According
Speaker 1: to the U S Geological Survey, not counting ocean floor volcanoes,
Speaker 1: which are is where we find most of them, UH,
Speaker 1: there are fifteen hundred potentially active volcanoes worldwide, five hundred
Speaker 1: of which have erupted during historical time. Some of these
Speaker 1: are more remote and perhaps only threatened a limited number
Speaker 1: of people, such as say the two hundred people who
Speaker 1: live on the remote Japanese island of Agoshima in the
Speaker 1: Philippine Sea. It would this particular volcano last erupted in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, killing half the population, and today uh
Speaker 1: people live inside the volcanic crater depending on its geothermal power.
Speaker 1: And you can you should look up a picture of this.
Speaker 1: It's spelled Ao g A s h I m A,
Speaker 1: and they had some of these images. You can you
Speaker 1: see the whole volcanic island, and you can pinpoint um.
Speaker 1: You know, the signs of human habitation within the crater.
Speaker 1: And again it's just kind of a reminder of what
Speaker 1: it means to be a human in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: on a planet that is subject to to to upheaval
Speaker 1: like this. And then of course they're the Hawaiian islands,
Speaker 1: which are of course products of volcanic activity. The islands
Speaker 1: themselves were created by eruptions, and then ideal bays and
Speaker 1: harbors or you know, often the remnants of the calderas
Speaker 1: with Vesuvius. The region is beautiful and economically valuable because
Speaker 1: of the volcanic formation of the surrounding region. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, the volcanic soil, like we mentioned in
Speaker 1: the first episode, rich ideal for orchards and vineyards, and
Speaker 1: it's a vacation destination as well. But isn't like the
Speaker 1: most active volcano in the world old in Hawaii. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Kilauea on the Big Island is is quite active. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, and it's it's really it's worth looking at
Speaker 1: because there's a there's a wonderful two eighteen New York
Speaker 1: Times article by Simon Romero titled Hawaii's volcano country, where
Speaker 1: land is cheap and the living is risky. And I
Speaker 1: thought this, this is really telling to again getting that
Speaker 1: question of why do people live in close proximity to
Speaker 1: U volcanoes? Sometimes um so in this particular situation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Hawaii is beautiful. I love Hawaii. I have when I've visited.
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to visit a few times, and uh
Speaker 1: and I always love it. I never want to leave
Speaker 1: when I am there. But here's the thing. There's limited
Speaker 1: land there, and the way that land is used is
Speaker 1: oftentimes controversial. On top of this, there's a severe housing
Speaker 1: shortage and very little affordable property and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Ramero writes that the economic factors alone have led some
Speaker 1: on the Big Island to live ever closer to the
Speaker 1: wrath of this, this beautiful but active volcano. In this article,
Speaker 1: which I do recommend reading in full, the author speaks
Speaker 1: with one uh, an individual by the name of Jaris
Speaker 1: dreaming um musician. So that's thus the colorful name uh.
Speaker 1: And he's an individual who purchased some one hundred acres
Speaker 1: of land for a hundred thousand dollars. And the reason
Speaker 1: it was so cheap was because it's very close proximity
Speaker 1: to active lava flows. So not just the possibility of
Speaker 1: volcanic activity, but the the visual like the clear of
Speaker 1: volcanic activity of moving lava um. Another example, I just sorry,
Speaker 1: I just had a question. How does real estate law
Speaker 1: deal with lava flows that like change the outlines of land?
Speaker 1: That's that's a great question. Yeah. Yeah, So like if
Speaker 1: you say, if you own land and then it gets
Speaker 1: paved over by lava flows, I assume you still own
Speaker 1: I don't know how you measure it, like afly the
Speaker 1: same land with the same borders. What about if so
Speaker 1: lava flows create new land going out into the ocean
Speaker 1: where it was previously, Like who gets that land? I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's a that's a good question. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: I'm imagining that in most of the situations that we'd
Speaker 1: be able to look at, it would not be like
Speaker 1: an individual's land. I don't know that would it be
Speaker 1: whoever owns the shoreline that it extends from. I guess.
Speaker 1: But then also I'm I'm I'm pretty sure that would
Speaker 1: be off limits anyway, Like you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: They wouldn't let you even try to build an active
Speaker 1: lava um for instance. An example that Romero brings up
Speaker 1: in this particular article is that a nine eruption buried
Speaker 1: a hundred homes in Kalapana in uh In, Hawaii on
Speaker 1: the Big Island, and today you'll find dozens of not
Speaker 1: to code homes that have been built atop the same
Speaker 1: flow field. So it's I mean, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the place was buried. Now there is new land there,
Speaker 1: and you know, aparently nobody's supposed to officially be living there,
Speaker 1: but there's available land there in a place where available
Speaker 1: land is scarce, so of course people are going to
Speaker 1: move there despite the risks. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like I think about haunted houses a lot, especially when
Speaker 1: when topics of like home values come up and and
Speaker 1: so forth, in part because I find those topics of
Speaker 1: dreary and depressing and I want to retreat into fantasy.
Speaker 1: But also I'm like, I would put up with a
Speaker 1: ghost if you know, if it meant uh, you know,
Speaker 1: lower lower mortgage payment and whatnot. I maybe I would
Speaker 1: even invent the idea of a ghost if it resulted
Speaker 1: in that, you know, um, so oh yeah, can you
Speaker 1: get a discount that way? Like call up your bank
Speaker 1: and say, like, nobody told me this house was haunted.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to reduce my mortgage. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, plus the other side, the other way of
Speaker 1: looking at it is that you know, a ghost is
Speaker 1: much safer than an act of lava flow in your backyard,
Speaker 1: So I would be all for it. You know what
Speaker 1: this makes me think is we could do a whole
Speaker 1: other episode sometime on the theology of volcanic eruptions. Oh
Speaker 1: for sure, Yeah, yeah, yeah, the various divine interpretations of
Speaker 1: the eruptions, the mythological reasons given for the eruptions, that
Speaker 1: would be cool to get into. Yeah. We didn't even
Speaker 1: really touch that, didn't. I think the most we did
Speaker 1: was discussing how there were stories of the rumblings of
Speaker 1: Vesuvius being tied to tales or accules fighting monsters or
Speaker 1: giants in the earth. Yeah. Probably. I think that has
Speaker 1: something to do with the naming of Herculaneum. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the idea that it was founded by hercules. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course in uh in the culture of Hawaii you
Speaker 1: find the tales of of Pale the volcano deity. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there there would be a lot of rich territory to
Speaker 1: discuss there. So maybe we'll return. If everybody's into the
Speaker 1: topic of volcanoes. There's a lot more to discuss. There's
Speaker 1: a like. One area I'd like to come back to
Speaker 1: potentially would be to discuss volcanic winter, discussed the year
Speaker 1: without summer. Yes, that would be uh, I think a
Speaker 1: good one to return to. We'll be back in the meantime,
Speaker 1: just like the lava flow will be back. Yes, they will.
Speaker 1: It's an active world. Uh. In the meantime, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from any of you, especially if you
Speaker 1: out there have if you live or have lived in
Speaker 1: an area of volcanic activity, Uh, definitely right in and
Speaker 1: let us know what it's like. If you have, if
Speaker 1: you can answer our questions about the highways surrounding vesuvious,
Speaker 1: we'd like to hear from you as well. Have you
Speaker 1: visited some of these places, We'd we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you about that as well. Uh. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: also check out our other episodes. You'll find them wherever
Speaker 1: you get podcasts, wherever that happens to be. Just make
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review, give us some stars, subscribe,
Speaker 1: tell a few friends, and if you go to stuffable
Speaker 1: your mind dot com that should redirect you to the
Speaker 1: I heart listing for the show. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for
Speaker 1: the future, just to say hello, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart
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