Pompeii: The Last Day Trivia Quiz

Answer: the founding date is unknown

It's believed that Pompeii was founded in either the sixth or seventh century BC, though the exact date is unknown.

Answer: celebrating a festival

The day before Vesuvius erupted, Pompeiians and those living in surrounding communities were celebrating a festival in honour of the Roman god of fire.

Answer: Yes

In 62AD, a major earthquake struck, causing considerable damage to many Pompeiian buildings. There were also minor earth tremors in the weeks before Vesuvius erupted, but since the people living in the area were used to seismic activity, they did not treat any of this as a warning sign of an impending disaster.

Answer: five miles

Pompeii lies approximately five miles (eight kilometres) from Vesuvius. Other towns located in the same area include Herculaneum and Stabiae, which were also destroyed by the eruption.

Answer: True

No-one living in the surrounding areas had ever seen a volcanic eruption, so as far as they were concerned, Vesuvius was nothing more than a cone-shaped hill.

Answer: 1599

It was during the building of a channel designed to divert the river Sarno that the first remains of Pompeii were found in 1599. These were mostly walls covered in paintings and ancient writing, one of which clearly displayed the name 'Pompeii'. However, these finds were reburied (!) for reasons that are unclear.

Systematic excavation of the site began in late 1740s, revealing that many of the buildings were still intact. In 1819 at the Naples National Archaeological Museum, the was an exhibition displaying some of the artefacts found in Pompeii. Among the visitors was the King of Naples and his family. The King was so embarrassed by the openly erotic nature of many of the paintings that he decided to have them locked away in a secret location, where they would only be accessible to "mature-aged people".

In 1863, Giuseppe Fiorelli took over the running of the excavations. Occasionally, archaeologists would find hollows in the ash and, by filling these hollows with plaster, they produced almost perfect casts of the bodies of some of the victims.

Answer: human remains

The cellar contained the remains of no less than fifty-four people, both young and old, among them a pregnant woman and two children believed to have been twins. Some were found with their belongings which included jewellery and money while others were found with nothing. It seems the victims probably thought the cellar would be a safe place to hide from the eruption.

While some remains were removed for study, many were left where they died.

Answer: take-away food shops

The large number of take-away food shops indicates that they were used by everybody, not just the super-rich.

Answer: carbonized bread

There were thirty bakeries in Pompeii, so we know that bread was an important part of the Pompeiian diet. At one bakery, in particular, archaeologists discovered no fewer than eighty carbonized loaves of bread in the ovens, all cooked and ready to be sold. The loaves are round and cut into roughly eight large pieces.

Answer: a dog

This is probably one of the saddest discoveries to be made in Pompeii. The dog, wearing a bronze collar, was found chained to a post outside one of the houses, obviously abandoned by its owner. Unable to escape, it suffocated under roughly twenty-five metres of ash.