Pompeii on Google street view

A quiet street in Pompeii

A quiet street in Pompeii

This has the history geek in me all excited. Google’s street view service, which lets you zoom into Google maps and and see places in a 3D environment, just added the ruins of Pompeii to its database. How cool is that?

I’ve been there several times, but it’s been heavily excavated since I lived in Italy. Pompeii, which truly was situated in the shadow of Vesuvius, is a ruined and partially buried Roman city (resort really) near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania. The city was destroyed during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The neighboring town of Herculaneum was accidentally rediscovered in 1738 by workmen working on the foundation of a summer palace for the King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon. Pompeii was then rediscovered as the result of excavations in 1748 by the Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.

Since then Pompeii has become one of the most important archaeological finds of all time. Its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Even before it was fully excavated, Pompeii was an amazing place to visit. Now you can visit it virtually!

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Artist, satirist, and occasional blogger, Andrew has been drawing since he could hold a crayon. He started with squiggles, but they were darned good squiggles if he says so himself. And he will, just ask.
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