Was it on this day in AD 79 that Vesuvius erupted and buried #Pompeii, #Herculaneum and the other Vesuvian sites in volcanic debris?
Probably!
Evidence such as ripe pomegranates and the remnants of a recent grape harvest in wine-pressing rooms found in the ancient Vesuvian sites certainly suggest an autumnal date rather than the traditional August date recorded in a medieval copy of Pliny’s account of the eruption.
A charcoal inscription uncovered in #Pompeii contains the date ‘XVI K Nov’—16 days before the Kalends of Nov—equating to 17th Oct. No year is mentioned but the impermanence of charcoal suggests it *may* have been written close to the time of eruption.
Image: @MassimoOsanna
However tantalising this inscription it is certainly inconclusive as evidence. There are other charcoal inscriptions in Pompeii & it’s impossible to say whether they were all written within weeks of the eruption.
All we can surmise is that the eruption happened after summer…
Another charcoal inscription found in Pompeii is surely one of the most poignant known from the ancient city:
‘con[ti]quere omn(es)’
— ‘All fell silent’
A quote from Book II of the Aeneid on a wall in The House of the Four Styles.
ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graff…
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