People re-inhabited post-eruption Vesuvius

VESUVIUS WATCH: Life After Vesuvius: Archaeologists Uncover Post-eruption Return to Pompeii. The ancient Romans attempted to rebuild after the disaster of 79 C.E., and continued to eke out a post-apocalyptic living among the ruins of Pompeii for centuries, archaeological finds show (Ariel David, Times of Israel).

In the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., the once-bustling city of Pompeii was a smoldering landscape of ash covering wrecked buildings and decomposing corpses. But life, as the saying goes, found a way.

Either by choice or because they had nowhere else to go, people returned and continued to live for at least four centuries among the ruins of Pompeii, Italian archaeologists say. A new dig at the magnificently preserved Roman site has uncovered evidence of this post-eruption existence, showing that Pompeii never went near its former grandeur, but also didn't completely disappear.

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For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and its destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and, notably, on the efforts to reconstruct and decipher the carbonized library at Herculaneum, start here and follow the links. For posts that are more archaeology and history related, see here and links.

For more research on the survivors of the eruption, see here and here.

The 1946th anniversary of the eruption of Vesuvius will be on 26th August 2025. For more on Pliny the Elder's daring rescue mission, which may have cut the death toll at Pompeii by as much as half, see there and here and links.

For evidence for a Jewish presence at ancient Pompeii, see here and follow the links.

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