Buried in fire and ash

The Vesuvius volcano behind the archaeological site in Pompeii, Italy. Two thousand years on, scholars still don’t agree on the day the destruction of Pompeii began. — Gianni Cipriano/ ©2025 The New York Times Company

WHEN Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, torrents of ash and pumice smothered Pompeii, displacing around 15,000 inhabitants and killing at least 1,500 more.

Volcanic debris “poured across the land”, wrote Roman lawyer Pliny the Younger, blanketing the town in darkness “like the black of closed and unlighted rooms”.