Heard a podcast about a new find in Pompeii that changed my view on the eruption

I was listening to a history podcast yesterday and they mentioned a fresh dig in Pompeii. They found a room with a bunch of charcoal graffiti that dates the eruption to October, not August like most books say. The host said the charcoal would've faded fast if it was made in summer, so it had to be later. It's wild how one room can flip a whole timeline. Has anyone else read up on this new date theory?

4 comments

4 Comments

john50621d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah, that's the kind of detail that blows my mind. I heard a different show talking about the same thing, how they found traces of autumn fruits like pomegranates in the ash, and people were buried in heavier clothes. It makes total sense when you hear it laid out. It's crazy to think a date we all took for granted could be wrong for so long. What other facts do you think we might have totally backwards?

joseph_green134d ago

Ever notice how this happens with stuff like food science too, @shane_carter?

hannahj4921d ago

Right? The pomegranate detail got me too. I had the same feeling watching a doc about how dinosaurs probably had feathers. Like, we grew up with those giant lizard pictures in books and it turns out T-Rex might have looked like a weird chicken. It's wild how the stuff we learn as kids can just be... wrong. Makes you wonder what else we're all sure about that'll flip in twenty years.

shane_carter20d ago

That charcoal graffiti find is a solid point. I read a whole article on the fruit seeds and wine harvest evidence too. Makes you question the textbook dates for a lot of ancient events.