By Doug Criner

The ancient Roman city of Pompeii, situated on the Gulf of Naples in modern-day southern Italy, was buried in ash from the eruption of the nearby volcano Vesuvius in 79 A.D.  Seventeen years before, in 62 A.D., the city suffered major earthquake damage.  Some of the earthquake damage had not yet been repaired by the time of the volcanic eruption.

Pompeii's population was about 10,000.  The nearby city of Herculaneum and Pompeii, both destroyed, were prosperous resort communities.  Both were essentially seaside resorts, although neither is now immediately on the coastline.

Much less than half of Pompeii has yet been excavated, beginning in the 1700s.  The excavated portion provides rare insight into the technology used for construction, water distribution, and transportation in the first century A.D.

I first visited Pompeii in 1963 while serving in the U.S. Navy.  (Navy ships frequently visit Naples which is a short distance, by highway or rail, from Pompeii.) That initial visit provided a general overview of Pompeii and a background for additional reading.  A second visit in 2001 presented an opportunity to focus on details of interest to an engineer rather than merely the wonder of it all or the images that we today may consider pornographic.  (Actually, the most sexually explicit images from Pompeii are now in the National Museum in Naples, so if that is your primary interest, you needn't trek to Pompeii.)

The links to the left provide a pictorial record and commentary of my second visit to Pompeii, which was in conjunction with a week in Sorrento, a picturesque Italian town on the opposite side of Pompeii from Naples.  I gratefully acknowledge the help of tour guides at Pompeii, especially Claudio.

All photographs on the links are scanned 35mm color negatives, taken by the author.

Vesuvius at dusk, viewed from Sorrento across the Bay of Naples.  Pompeii is situated slightly to the right of Vesuvius.  The lights reveal the dense population around Vesuvius.  The red glow in the sky is from the lights of Naples.

© Doug Criner, 2003