Ancient History and Archaeology.com

Its been a long time since my last post, I know. But not without good reason.

I now have two more Pompeii guides out on RAMA: ‘Civic Pompeii ‘and ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’.

As with the first tour ‘Discovering Pompeii’, the guides aim to tell a story about the life of the ancient city. Each landmark or ‘waypoint’ acts as a focal point to illustrate an episode from that story.

‘Civic Pompeii’ takes the visitor on a journey through the history of Pompeii, focusing on its temples, theatres and forums. It begins and ends with the intriguing triangular forum. This spur of volcanic rock overlooks the central area of Pompeii. In itself, it represents the changing fortunes-and character of a city that began Oscan and ended Roman. It was the city’s earliest sacred centre, before becoming the focal point of the town’s ‘entertainment zone’. By the end of Pompeii’s, life it was the equivalent of a public park.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jacobson of the ‘Pompeii VRL project’ for his permission to use the excellent 3D reconstructions of the triangular forum.

 Additional thanks to William Gunn Glennhouse for allowing me to use his image of a replica Roman basilica.

‘Pompeii’s last Days speaks for itself. The tour takes the visitor through the destruction of Pompeii, using waypoints which represent key stages in the eruption of Vesuvius-and the effect they had on the city.

This tour was a real challenge to write because I had to find waypoints which ran sequentially and fitted into the narrative of the eruption, which I constructed using the latest theories on the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. There was so much material to choose from; I had to be really selective.

‘Pompeii’s last Days’ was probably my favorite of the Pompeii tours to write. I think this is because I was using the archaeology to tell the story of what is ultimately a human tragedy. At times, it felt quite emotional. This is largely due to so much of the narrative being focused on the human remains from Pompeii.

I’ve written about the plaster casts of Vesuvius’s Roman victims before in my article ‘Human Remains in Pompeii’. The way they preserve a semblance of the people of Pompeii-even in some cases down to details of their clothing and facial expressions- is one of the miracles of the eruption. But it also reminds us that these aren’t simple artifacts-they are people like us. The one that touched me the most is in the child in the picture below. This little boy or girl died suddenly in the early hours of their last day, along with their parents as they tried to escape the building they had been sheltering in.

I suppose ultimately, ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’ reminded me that the city isn’t just a remarkable and fascinating window into the ancient world. It’s the site of a natural disaster.

Currently, RAMA tours are only available on Ipad or IPod. But RAMA is extending the App into android this February. It’s also going to be tweaked so that it can be read offline. This means that the tours can be enjoyed as an interactive themed guide for the many towns and cities they cover and as a historical e-resource.

I certainly hope that as well as providing compelling guides to the city, readers of my Pompeii guides will find them useful historical/archaeological resources for this fascinating city. As well as good stories too.

The first of my recently accepted articles has now been published. its about the Ummayyad Mosque in Damascus and can be found on the Travel Thru History website. Here's the link for those who'd like to take a look without the searching:

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http://www.travelthruhistory.com/html/historic52.html

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Off now to get some work done whilst Marcus is napping.?Hopefully I can reward myself with some downtime in the sunshine this afternoon!