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Google has added Pompeii to its Street View application, allowing internet users to take a 360-degree virtual tour of the ancient Roman city. Italy's culture ministry says it hopes the move will boost tourism to the site, state news agency Ansa reports. Among the ruins visible on the search engine's free mapping service are the town's statues, temples and theatres. The city was buried in ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and was not discovered until the 18th Century. The volcanic debris preserved many of the city's buildings, frescos, silverware, mosaics and other artefacts. "Giving people a chance to...

Brisbane may be 2000 years and half-a-world away from Pompeii, but it hasn't stopped a UQ archaeologist from digging up some hidden treasures. Dr Andy Fairbairn, a senior lecturer in archaeology with UQ's School of Social Science, is working on a project looking at the life inside one of the world's most famous dig sites... He does this by collecting samples from what would have been the toilets of the day to see the types of food were eaten... He said his team of volunteer archaeology students patiently go through hundreds of bags of samples collected in Pompeii, looking for...

Digging deeper: Archaeologists race to show Pompeii daily life

On Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Italy's Mount Vesuvius exploded, burying the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii under tons of super-heated ash, rock and debris in one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history. Thousands died. But somehow, hundreds of papyrus scrolls survived -- sort of -- in a villa at Herculaneum thought to have been owned at one time by Julius Caesar's father-in-law. The scrolls contained ancient philosophical and learned writings. But they were so badly damaged -- literally turned to carbon by the volcanic heat -- that they crumbled when scholars first tried to open them centuries...

The delicately painted statue, which was discovered in the ancient ruins of Herculaneum in 2006 and believed to depict an Amazon Warrior, is now the subject of a joint restoration project by the University of Southampton, the University of Warwick, and the Herculaneum Conservation Project. Highly sophisticated digital imaging is vital for the recording, subsequent analysis and restoration of cultural heritage material... A specially-designed rig, camera structure, and associated custom software was developed in the School of Electronics and Computer Science by Dr Kirk Martinez and the team in the Mechanical Workshop to enable very fast acquisition of PTM data,...

Researchers hope to learn more about our heritage by discovering whether the items were imported from southern Italy, or manufactured using similar techniques in Britain. The bronze artifacts, which include a wine-mixing vessel, jugs and ceremonial pan-shaped objects, were discovered in Kent in two high status Roman pit-burials that are among the best examples ever seen in Britain... Archaeological scientists will compare the 1st Century AD artifacts from Kent with those from Pompeii in Italy. The neutron beams at the world-leading ISIS facility allow for detailed crystal structure analysis of intact delicate objects without cutting out a sample of the...

At around 1:00 p.m. on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Pompeii residents saw a pine tree-shaped column of smoke bursting from Vesuvius. Reaching nine miles into the sky, the column began spewing a thick pumice rain. Many residents rushed in the streets, trying to leave the city. "At that moment, Polybius' house was inhabited by 12 people, including a young woman in advanced pregnancy. They decided to remain in the house, most likely because it was safer for the pregnant woman. Given the circumstances, it was the right strategy," Scarpati said... At around 7:00 p.m., by which time the front part...

POMPEII, Italy, OCT. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI placed the world in Mary's hands during his one-day visit to the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, near Naples. The Pope's leading of the Supplication of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, a prayer written by Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926) was one of the high points of this 12th pastoral trip in Italy. "We implore you to have pity today on the nations that have gone astray, on all Europe, on the whole world, that they might repent and return to your heart," the text of the prayer...

Pompeii (AsiaNews) - Entrusting the synod on the Word of God to Mary, "in whose womb to Word was made flesh," "that it may bring the fruit of authentic renewal to every Christian community," and urging prayers for those who "exert their energies in service of the proclamation of the Gospel to all nations." These are the reasons for the pilgrimage that Benedict XVI made today to Pompeii, the town near Naples reborn last century around the shrine conceived by Blessed Bartolo Longo and dedicated in a special way to the Rosary, which the pope described today as "a...

The unique library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, buried beneath lava by Vesuvius's eruption in AD79, is slowly revealing its long-held secretsSTORED in a sky-lit reading room on the top floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples are the charred remains of the only library to survive from classical antiquity. The ancient world's other great book collections -- at Athens, Alexandria and Rome -- all perished in the chaos of the centuries. But the library of the Villa of the Papyri was conserved, paradoxically, by an act of destruction. Lying to the northwest of ancient Herculaneum, this...

for 10 years, an Italian team has been beavering away underground to reveal the wonders of Pozzuoli, once the port of ancient Rome, which is buried under a 16th century city. Excavators at Pompeii, entombed in ash and toxic debris by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, were able to remove the volcanic material and expose the city to the open air. But in Pozzuoli, whose beauty was such that the great Roman orator Cicero called it "little Rome," the ancient streets were encased in the foundations of a new city built by the Spanish in the 1500s,...

The people of the Mondsee Lake settlement were apparently relatively advanced within this cultural group. They had metallurgical skills, which were rare in Europe. They cleverly searched the mountains for copper deposits, melted the crude ore in clay ovens and made refined, shimmering red weapons out of the metal. In dugout canoes... they paddled along the region's river networks and sold their goods in areas of present-day Switzerland and to their relatives on Lake Constance. Even Otzi the Iceman had an axe, made of so-called Mondsee copper. At approximately 3200 B.C., says Binsteiner, the master blacksmiths were struck by a...

Remains of rotten fish entrails have helped establish the precise dating of Pompeii's destruction, according to Italian researchers who have analyzed the town's last batch of garum, a pungent, fish-based seasoning. Frozen in time by the catastrophic eruption that covered Pompeii and nearby towns nearly 2,000 years ago with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice, the desiccated remains were found at the bottom of seven jars. The find revealed that the last Pompeian garum was made entirely with bogues (known as boops boops), a Mediterranean fish species that abounded in the area in the summer months of...

Over several centuries, millions of tourists have visited Pompeii to acquaint themselves with the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius that began on Aug. 24, 79 A.D. But while it's the most famous eruption site, the ancient Roman city 15 miles south of Naples isn't the best place to gauge the volcano's awesome destructive power. For that, one should visit lesser-known Herculaneum, which is closer to Vesuvius, or Oplontis and Stabiae, two sites more recently uncovered and still relatively unknown to tourists. In these places, several of which are still being excavated, the eruption's consequences are more visible.

An ancient tannery in the archaeological complex of Pompeii, a city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the first century, will be restored, officials said Monday. The tannery -- discovered in the 19th century and excavated in the 1950s -- includes water pipes, 15 round tubs and the tannery manager's house, archaeological officials said. A drying area is also believed to have been part of the complex. Restoration of the tannery, which is believed to be among the world's most ancient, is expected to start this year, the statement said. No other information was immediately available. Pompeii was destroyed in...

The ground on the western edges of Naples, Italy is rising, spurring worries of a possible volcanic eruption, but scientists now think they know exactly what is causing the uplift and may be able to better predict any potential eruption. Using GPS measurements, a group of scientists at the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Italy monitored the ground’s motions for several years, and based on the patterns they observed, they believe the uplifting is caused by magma intruding from a shallow chamber. The rising motions of the ground reached a peak rate of about three feet per year...

First Pompeii uncoveredSamnites founded city in Third Century BC (ANSA) - Rome, February 1 - The origins of the famed buried city of Pompeii have emerged from years of excavations, an international conference in Rome was told Thursday. The first Pompeii was not built by the Romans or even by the Greeks who preceded them, but by an ancient people called the Samnites, Pompeii heritage Superintendent Piero Guzzo told a packed audience of archaeologists and scholars. Wielding photos of inscriptions, votive offerings and even entire buildings, Guzzo said "a new season of studies has begun". "For the first time we...

The U.S. Department of Interior has designated Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds as a national natural landmark, the first such landmark to be designated in almost two decades. The site, near the town of Neligh (see Nebraska map), is home to hundreds of skeletons of extinct rhinos, camels, three-toed horses, and other vertebrates that were killed and buried by ash from a huge volcanic eruption some 12 million years ago. It is the only place on Earth where large numbers of fossil mammals have been found as whole, three-dimensionally preserved skeletons. "Ashfall has tremendous value for science and education and great...

Brooklyn College Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology Alfred L. Rosenberger is part of a team of Argentinean and United States scholars who have identified a new species of monkey that once roamed the forests of South America. The discovery of the monkey species, Killikaike blakei, is the result of painstaking analysis of a small, perfectly preserved monkey skull that was found embedded in volcanic rock by members of an Argentinean ranching family. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This fossil, which is dated to 16.4 million years ago, is a spectacular addition...

Think Pompeii got hit hard? Worse eruptions lurk By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent Mon Mar 6, 5:03 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The preserved footprints and abandoned homes of villagers who fled a giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius 3,800 years ago show the volcano could destroy modern-day Naples with little warning, Italian and U.S. researchers reported on Monday. The eruption buried entire villages as far as 15 miles (25 kilometres) from the volcano, cooking people as they tried to escape and dumping several feet (metres) of ash and mud. New excavations show far more extensive damage than that...

Villa buried by Pompeii eruption is unearthed By Hilary Clarke in Rome (Filed: 22/11/2005) An archaeological dig on the Amalfi coast has revealed the first luxury villa to be built in the idyllic fishing village of Positano, a popular haunt of today's rich and famous. A frescoe on a wall of the villa found in Positano Two storeys of a first century millionaire's abode have been found under a church which was hidden for 2,000 years by the same volcanic eruption that devastated Pompeii in 79AD. During renovation work on the church's crypt last summer, roof beams were found poking...

Decorated cups and fine silver platters were once again polished and on display Monday as archaeologists unveiled an ancient Roman dining set that lay hidden for two millennia in the volcanic ash of Pompeii.In 2000, archaeologists found a wicker basket containing the silverware in the ruins of a thermal bath near the remains of the Roman city, said Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, head of Pompeii's archaeological office.The basket was filled with the volcanic ash that buried the city when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. When experts X-rayed it, they saw the objects preserved in the ash, which killed thousands of...

ROME - Sauces made from fermented fish entrails. A quiche-like pastry shell filled with bay leaves and ricotta cheese. For dessert, peaches with aromatic cumin and honey. Those tastes may not be for everyone's palate, but the specialties of ancient Pompeii are being revived for a month at the site of the ruins by a research project intended to give new insights into how the Romans lived. Pompeii's busiest restaurant was buried with the rest of the prosperous city when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. The eruption killed thousands of people, but a 20-foot-deep cocoon of volcanic ash kept...

Pompeii's burial not its first disaster Sid Perkins From Denver, at a meeting of the Geological Society of America Recent excavations reveal that the ancient city of Pompeii, famed for its burial by an eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, suffered through several devastating landslides in the centuries preceding its volcanic demise. About three-fourths of Pompeii has been excavated, says Jean-Daniel Stanley of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. However, most of the digs in the city have extended down only to the ground level of dwellings that were standing in the 1st century. In...

Pompeii pottery may rewrite history Heather Catchpole ABC Science Online Monday, 8 November 2004 A broken plate is one of the pieces in the puzzle of how ancient cultures traded (Image: Jaye Pont) Archaeologists may need to change their view of Pompeii's role in trade and commerce, after a ceramics expert's recent discovery. Australian researcher Jaye Pont from the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Sydney's Macquarie University says people who lived in Pompeii bought their pottery locally and didn't import it. Pont said the find could "make waves" among archaeologists looking at trade in the Mediterranean. And she said researchers...

The Pacific's Pompeii 11.09.2004Stuart Bedford displays a piece of Lapita pottery. Picture/ Amos Chapple When New Zealand archaeologist Dr Stuart Bedford was handed a large piece of ancient broken pottery in Vanuatu this year he thought it was a joke. At Port Vila for a wedding, all thoughts of the nuptials deserted him as he stared at the piece of highly decorated Lapita pottery. "I thought I must have been in another country," he said. Finds of Lapita, the distinctive patterned pottery that marks the movement of the first settlers into eastern Melanesia and western Polynesia, are relatively uncommon on...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

Whole communities of ape-like creatures may have been killed in volcanic disasters that struck East Africa 18 million years ago... It follows a study of rock deposits close to the once active volcano Kisingiri. These contained fossils of what is believed to be a forerunner of humans called Proconsul... research suggests they may have been caught by a pyroclastic flow. These are clouds of hot gas, dust and rubble which travel at huge speeds from erupting volcanoes. Scientists, who report their findings in the Journal of the Geological Society, believe the abundance of the hominoid fossils may represent "death...

Over the centuries the belief lingered on that here had been a great, wealthy, powerful commercial city that dominated the mouth of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic, a city of luxury and splendor, a kind of ancestor and predecessor of Venice, founded more than a thousand years later. Classical scholars also knew about Spina, for ancient literary sources indicated that there must once have existed a thriving maritime trading settlement of great economic importance, until the Celtic invasion of the Po valley destroyed it... The final key to its ultimate discovery came from aerial photography. Some...

One of the world's best-preserved Bronze Age villages has been found at Nola, a few miles from Vesuvius, during routine tests before construction of a shopping center. A catastrophic eruption of the volcano, known to have taken place between 1800 and 1750 B.C., left this "Prehistoric Pompeii" in a state of remarkable preservation... Although much of the structure of the prehistoric huts was destroyed by the eruption, falling ash and volcanic mud hardened to create a kind of mold of the village in reverse, much like the casts of the victims of Vesuvius' more famous eruption. In addition to...

Feb. 3 — An Iraqi dam under construction on the Tigris River threatens to submerge the remains of the spiritual capital of the ancient Assyrian empire in an act archaeologists liken to flooding the Vatican.Much of the city of Ashur, which thrived for more than 1,000 years until the Babylonians razed it in 614 B.C., could vanish under a lake to be created by the Makhoul dam, U.S. and European archaeologists said.More than 60 outlying historical sites are also threatened.Ashur, or Assur, was of such importance that it lent its name to the Assyrian civilization itself."Losing it would be...

ANCHORAGE (AP) - Noting a swarm of tiny earthquakes beneath volcanic Mount Spurr, scientists have warned that the volcano 80 miles west of Anchorage could erupt in the next few weeks. Eruptions most often follow a pattern of quakes, said geophysicist John Power of the U.S. Geological Survey, one of three federal and state partners in the Anchorage-based Alaska Volcano Observatory. Power added, however, that the earthquakes will most likely end without an eruption. Mount Spurr was last significantly active in 1992. In an August explosion that year, it spread a thin layer of ash over Anchorage. The mountain's recent...

Gold bracelet found on arm of (slave?) girl killed near Pompeii by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. On the inside of the bracelet is carved "from the Master to his slave girl" (DOM[I]NUS ANCILLAE SUAE).

Pompeii find shows secrets of the Samnites By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 05/07/2004) The discovery in Pompeii of a pre-Roman temple is being hailed as evidence that the city was sophisticated and thriving 300 years before Vesuvius erupted. The temple is said to be of Mephitis, a female deity worshipped by the Samnites, a mysterious ancient people who preceded the Romans in Pompeii. The temple complex includes a sanctuary where it is thought girls from good families worked briefly in "sacred prostitution" as a rite of passage to full womanhood. The Samnites were previously thought of as mountain warriors,...

Friday, June 11, 2004 By Marion O’MaraViking ‘town’ is Ireland’s equivalent of Pompeii IT’S likely to be some weeks yet before Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen announces recommendations for dealing with and possibly preserving what historians are now describing as Ireland’s first town. The discovery of the Viking settlement, at Woodstown, five miles from the city, which is believed to date back to the mid-9th century, was made as preparatory work got underway on the city’s €300m by-pass. The site, located close to the River Suir, is 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and so far up to...

Herculean task for modern scholars By Robert Fowler ALMOST all the texts we have of the ancient classics derive from generations of scribal copies, separated by many centuries from the originals. Most works of classical literature — some 90 per cent — were not even lucky enough to be copied and survive into modern times. Very occasionally, the archaeologist’s spade turns up fragments of books written in antiquity itself, allowing us direct access to lost works and what the ancients said. Some celebrated sites, such as Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, have yielded up splendid finds. Yet strangely, the most spectacular of...