Puzzle No. 82: When?

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE buried the Campanian towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae under metres of ash, pumice and pyroclastic surges, killing thousands and freezing daily Roman life in place. The young Roman writer Pliny the Younger recorded the disaster in two letters describing the towering ash column and the death of his uncle, the naturalist Pliny the Elder, who had sailed toward the eruption to mount a rescue; his account is the earliest detailed eyewitness description of a volcanic eruption, lending its name to 'Plinian' eruptions in volcanology. Sealed beneath volcanic deposits, the sites preserved houses, frescoes, graffiti, food and the body-cavities of victims, later rediscovered from the 18th century onward to become an unparalleled archaeological window onto Roman urban society, art and economy. The catastrophe occurred early in the reign of the emperor Titus and remains the most famous natural disaster of the ancient world.

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