Pompeii may have been unseasonably cold when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Roman city in 79 AD, a new study suggests.
A new analysis of 14 iconic plaster casts made from Pompeii victims reveals that at least four of them wore woolen clothing when they were buried, despite the region’s typically hot weather in late August, when the eruption is believed to have occurred. The researchers also pointed out that people may have worn woolen clothing to protect themselves from the eruption.
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This reflects the old idea that Vesuvius may have erupted in a later, colder month than August. However, modern scholarship has determined from contemporary documents that the volcano erupted on August 24, 1979, and some experts suggest that the traces of woolen clothing from Pompeii were not a sign of cold weather.
“They wore wool, because that’s what people wore at the time,” said Peder Foss, a historian and archaeologist at DePauw University in Indiana who was not involved in the study. Sheep’s wool was strong, warm even when wet, and relatively inexpensive. Linen made from flax was available but delicate. And in ancient times only the elite wore silk and cotton. “About 90 percent of all clothing was wool,” Foss told Live Science.
The study was led by archaeologist Llorens Alaponto of the University of Valencia. Researchers studied the weaving of textiles imprinted on plaster molds of Vesuvius victims in Pompeii, according to a translated statement from the university. “From our research… we can learn how people were dressed on this particular day in history,” Alapont said in a statement.
Date in dispute
A total of 104 casts have been made at Pompeii since the 19th century, by filling in the cavities where victims were buried with ash and debris from the erupting volcano. (Stephen Tuck, a history professor at the University of Miami, believes that about 2,000 people were killed at Pompeii, but many more escaped.) Castings are no longer manufactured, as it is believed that they can destroy any ruins.
Alapont said weaving marks on the clothing of Pompeii’s victims showed that most of them wore two-piece costumes, consisting of woolen tunics and cloaks. However, “we don’t know if this particular clothing was intended to protect against the gases from the volcanic eruption or the surrounding heat,” he said. In other words, he wondered whether those killed at Pompeii were probably wearing woolen clothing to protect themselves from the gases, heat, or ash fall during the eruption, which lasted about 18 hours.
Foss explained that Roman writer Pliny the Younger witnessed the eruption when he was a teenager and described it in a letter to Roman historian Tacitus some 30 years later. Pliny the Elder firmly dated the eruption as “Nonum Calendus Septembres,” nine days before the first September calendar, or August 24, 79 AD, according to the modern Gregorian calendar.
But Pliny the Younger’s account was heavily copied in the Middle Ages, and the month of the eruption was debated until recent research confirmed that Pliny, already a powerful Roman magistrate at the time, recorded the August date, Foss said.
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Supporters of the later months point to evidence of autumn fruit at Pompeii, inscriptions scrawled in charcoal on walls there, and what appear to be coins from a later period discovered at the site. However, none of these are definitive.
Alison Emerson, a historian and archaeologist at Tulane University, explained the controversy to Live Science in an email. “The manuscript tradition is very secure. The only date given in the text is August 24,” she says. “However, whether it reflects the actual date of the event is still debatable.”
warmth or protection
The latest research does not give a date for Vesuvius’ eruption. It only says that the clothes worn by the Pompeii victims may indicate that the day of the eruption was unseasonably cold for August, but then again that may not have been the case, or the wool may have been for protection.
Researchers also determined that the people who died inside and outside the Pompeii house were wearing the same type of clothing, the statement said.
Foss said the study by Alapont and his team was important because it revealed what people were wearing when they were murdered in Pompeii, but it did not raise any questions regarding the weather. “I don’t think there’s a debate either way,” he concluded.
Pompeii Quiz: How much do you know about the Roman city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius?
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