Everyone knows the story of Pompeii: the city on the west coast of Italy that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the 1 st Century C.E.
Interestingly, this was around the same time that the Gospels were being written, and the eyewitness accounts of the eruption make an interesting comparison:
"Many lifted up their hands to their gods," the younger Pliny wrote to his friend Tacitus at the end of the first century, "but a great number believed there were no gods, and that this night was to be the world's last, eternal one" (Letters 5.16; 5.20). It was the night of August 24, 79 C.E., and since noon of that day Vesuvius had hurled gas, ash, and pumice 12 miles into the air above the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Pliny said that the initial eruption looked like a huge umbrella pine (we would have said a giant mushroom cloud). "Like an immense tree trunk it was projected into the air, and opened out with branches. I believe that it was carried up by a violent gust, then left as the gust faltered; or, overcome by its own weight, it scattered widely sometimes white, sometimes dark and mottled, depending on whether it bore ash or cinders."
Of course, Pompeii was completely covered over by a molten flow of gas, ash and pumice, and was lost for over 1,500 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1599.
The excavation of the city produced quite a few farcical incidents, including murals and frescoes that were uncovered, the covered up again or plastered over, due to their graphic sexual content. Many aspects of first century life were perfectly preserved, including the graffiti, of which my favorite is:
Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls.
Much of the graffiti has been translated, and is available on-line, but is lewd and obscene!
Still, it does make ancient history seem more real, and shows what Jesus and the apostles had to contend with!
(In Search of Paul: John Dominic Crossan and Jonathon L. Reed HarperCollins Publishers 2004)