The Curse of Pompeii - Ep. 16

In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum beneath ash, pumice, and deadly pyroclastic flows, preserving the final moments of two ancient Roman cities in horrifying detail. But was that the end of Pompeii’s misfortune, or did something cursed remain beneath the ruins?

Fresh from visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum, Angela takes Daniel through the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the remarkably preserved streets and homes of Pompeii, and the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger. Along the way, they examine exploding skulls, plaster casts, ancient brothels, good-luck penises, and the surprisingly ordinary details of Roman life frozen in time.

Then they uncover the modern Curse of Pompeii, an urban legend claiming that tourists who steal rocks, tiles, mosaics, and other artifacts from the archaeological site are rewarded with illness, financial ruin, and relentless bad luck. More than 100 visitors have reportedly returned stolen souvenirs, often accompanied by letters begging Pompeii, and perhaps its dead, for forgiveness.

Is Pompeii truly cursed, or is the legend simply doing the useful work of frightening tourists into keeping their hands to themselves?

Maybe cursed. Maybe not. Definitely cursed...ish.

Questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share? Send us a hex at uhoh@cursedish.com.

The hosts of Cursed...ish are not responsible for any misfortunes that may befall you while listening to this podcast. By listening to Cursed...ish, you assume all risk of bad luck, ill omens, and unexplained catastrophes.

*Terms and conditions may be upheld by unknown forces.

Transcript

Angela 0:00

They were covered so quickly by the ash and the soot, and it just kind of like created like a capsule around them that you can see all the little details, like the wrinkles in their clothing.

Daniel 0:10

It's like a disturbing shrink wrap, sort of, right? Yes.

Angela 0:14

Yes, thank you for that um way of describing it. To see what sordid little details reveal themselves when the smoke clears. I'm Angela Mattis.

Daniel 0:45

And I'm Daniel Stevens.

Angela 0:46

So, Daniel, I feel like we have a little bit of a theme running first with your episode last week, The Curse of Tanaya in Yosemite. And now this week, our curse is actually um from a place that I recently visited. In fact, I think we might have been on vacation at the same time.

Daniel 1:05

I think, yeah, it is vacation season.

Angela 1:07

It is vacation season. Although we don't have kids or anything, so for us, all seasons are vacation season, baby. Um, as you can tell, I'm sure if you've been listening to a lot of our episodes, we do travel a lot, and actually next week I will be in another accursed locale. Um, I'm very excited. So I'll keep this theme running. I'm going to New Orleans. Which I mean, you pretty much just throw a rock and hit a curse there. So um I'll have some episode five. Yeah. No, I'll be being careful.

Daniel 1:35

Try to come back without a souvenir.

Angela 1:37

Actually, I would be like to be made into a vampire while I'm there. I will be seeking that out. Although I'm pissed that I am not like 20 years old when seeking this out. Like if I was gonna be a vampire and stay in that state forever, I would be honestly like a little gripey.

Daniel 1:57

We're past prime vamping age.

Angela 1:59

Yeah. Rats. Um, so I guess I'll just stay in my own decrepit, slowly rotting body and just call it a day. I'm just gonna eat some food and have a couple drinks. But anyway, um last week I took a little trip to the Amalfi coast. So I was in Italy, and um to get to the Amalfi coast, you fly into Naples, Napoli. And actually, even when you're like coming, when your plane is descending into Napoli, you look out the window and you already see a very, very important feature in the landscape, and that is a mountain called Mount Vesuvius. And actually, it is what remains of the mountain because that girl blew her top back in 79 AD and destroyed a little place called Pompeii. And so I was very excited because on my trip, of course, to the Amalfi coast, I visited Capri and Pasetano and Amalfi and Ravello and had a very, very lovely time. I drank some limoncello. I ate a lot of. It's very bougie of you, Ange. Zer de bouge. Um, but I was most excited for it. I'm glad because it really didn't disappoint at all. I was most excited to go and visit Pompeii. So I did a tour. I went to Herculaneum and Pompeii, and we'll talk a little bit about Herculaneum because honestly, before this trip, I really had never heard of it. But there are two cities that were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius back in 79 AD, and they were in different spots in the Valley of the Mountains, so they experienced the eruption differently, and we'll kind of talk about this a little bit. So it was interesting because you see differences in this city very clearly when you're visiting them and the two different sites.

Daniel 3:47

Thank you for this context because I've obviously I remember learning about Pompeii and Vesuvius, but there's a little bit of like, which is the sit what's what's a city, what's a mountain, what's the volcano? And then yeah, I've heard of Herculaneum, but I was like, uh why have I heard of that? So thank you for all of this context level setting right at the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Geographical lesson of Pompeii.

Daniel 4:07

And I also have a super high-level question because this is the podcast, cursed dish. I've heard of Pompeii. I've never heard of anything about a curse about Pompeii or anything. So is I mean, it sounded like the people who live there were living an accursed life the day that they looked over and said, Oh, the mountain looks a little funky.

Angela 4:25

Well, what's that rumbling? Uh it could, I mean, yes, I agree. I did not know there was a curse either, but I was just being opportunistic when I was doing my research and I did do just a little Google search, like, are there any curses in the area? Is there because I really wanted to know if I was gonna be there if I had an opportunity to go and uh see uh see something firsthand and maybe be able to do a little bit of reporting. I did get my degree in journalism, so I thought it would have been cool to go and do a little bit of investigation. And I found, I mean, I kind of was I thought there might be like more little kind of tiny bits of lore scattered around the Amalfi coast. Um, but no, there is a curse on Pompeii, and we will talk a little bit about it because I did not I did not know about it. Um, but I would also agree with you that I would venture to argue that like living in Pompeii and living in Herculaneum at the time that this mountain exploded was a curse upon its own self because it was it was a bad it was a bad, bad time.

Daniel 5:27

Um I mean we've seen the aftermath the the people like those those the like casts of bodies like huddled for safety is those are those are really nightmarish and very sobering things to look at.

Angela 5:42

What also really is sobering is that the people who lived there had no idea that the mountain was a volcano. Like they didn't have that scientific context. They didn't know, no, they had no idea.

Daniel 5:54

So So wait, really one day they what they thought was just a regular mountain? Oh, oh, that's so much worse. I assume from time to time it would like smoke or give indication.

Angela 6:07

They didn't know what an what a volcano was.

Daniel 6:09

Um so much worse for some reason.

Angela 6:12

Yeah, there were, of course, the typical warning signs. There were earthquakes. There was like a really bad earthquake like 20 years before. And so I guess for what it's worth, that major earthquake that occurred, it like honestly damaged the city quite a bit. There, there was some, you know, like letter that was found, or someone in history was talking about Pompeii, and they said that that earthquake that happened in like um 62 AD, it was destructive. It said that it collapsed huge parts of the city of Pompeii. And so um even and this was like 20 years before, so I guess that's a I mean, that's a lot of time that they probably weren't correlating the two things together. But at the same time, um, I think for what it's worth, I they believe, just kind of looking at Pompeii, and we'll kind of talk about this a little bit more a little later in the episode, but they believed that there was a sense of clear upheaval in the city that wasn't just people evacuating. Like there were a lot of houses that had scaffolding up for like reconstruction or decorators in, and there was um some instances where like things seemed out of place, and they think that a lot of people had left the city because the infant like there were only there were like 12 or 13 public bathhouses, like public baths, and I think only like two or three of them were working at the time that the volcano erupted.

Daniel 7:34

So, like so basic day-to-day life was a struggle in the years leading up, it seems.

Angela 7:40

Yeah, like there was a lot of disruption from these earthquakes that were happening that were like unbeknownst to them, the pre-shocks of this volcano getting ready to blow.

Daniel 7:50

It really does sound like a cursed town.

Angela 7:52

Yeah.

Daniel 7:53

You know, like a curse is usually a pattern. And it's like they had a pattern and then the pattern ended with the Big Bang.

Angela 7:58

Yeah, like things were kind of on the on the downstream on the downturn for a little bit there. It's like crazy though to look at Mount Vesuvius. Like, first of all, I really had a sense of awe even before, like when I was looking through my itinerary, of all the things I was doing, I think it was the thing I was the most excited for and the most that I felt like awestruck about even before getting there. Because I too remember being a kid in school and learning about Pompeii and like, you know, seeing the pictures in my history textbook of the plaster casts of the, you know, people coward and you know, hiding from the ash and rubble. And it really just felt really special to be there. It's like it's huge. I was really surprised. I think I've seen other people say that that surprises them as well, is like how big it is. And it's just like so well preserved that as you're there, you really can feel like a clear understanding of what life was like in Pompeii. And it's so well preserved, even down to being able to see like trends in design, trends in the way things were built. Like you can see clearly when Roman influence started to come into the way that they were building things when they were starting to use Roman bricks and Roman concrete. Um, you can see still even things painted on the walls, like um, they were very political. So like you would see um, like you can still see like very clearly where it's written on the walls, like ads for shops, and then like underneath it says who they were supporting politically, or it will have like I love how mundane stuff can be in ancient ruins.

Daniel 9:35

That's a m I that's always I like Oh no.

Angela 9:37

Uh remind me of that point when we're talking a little bit more about the ruins of Pompeii in a few minutes because there was something that just cracked me up as like we never ever change. Um but no, actually, so when you first get to Pompeii, the thing like you begin at this big huge amphitheater, and it's like it was built before the Colosseum, and it was built from like I believe I think there must have been some Roman concrete involved because this thing is pristine. Like it is wild that they excavated this thing from underneath layers of ash and soot, and like I mean, I don't think the word calcified is correct, but in a description of like it was hard. It's not like they just like took a broom and swept it all away.

Daniel 10:20

Yeah. It was like a crust, it was a crusty thing, not just like not some dusting.

Angela 10:26

Yeah, well, you can even see in not even just like a crust, um, it was like feet of layers of because there were like what's called a pyroclastic flow of basically like when the mountain blew, everything went up into the air, and then it, you know, obviously rained back down on Herculaneum and Pompeii. And the the where the way that the pyroclastic flows hit each of these cities is what differentiated how they were preserved.

Daniel 10:56

Oh.

Angela 10:57

Um, but I was like watching a documentary last night about Pompeii, and they were showing like the gradation where you can see there were like six different pyroclastic flows that really buried the city, and a lot of them happened in the volcano erupting in 79 AD. Um, but there were more eruptions over like 400 AD, 500 AD, and it really even continued adding layers on top of it because Pompeii was like forgotten. It was forgotten in history, and like even Herculaneum is only a fraction of it is uncovered because there's so much built on top of it, because like people didn't know it was there, and it's like so far under that, like they're digging deep down into feet, like meters of pyroclastic flow remnants, I guess if you want to call it that. I'm sure there's a better scientific term for it. But um, yeah, so these places got buried and it wasn't even like there was of course people knew that Pompeii existed, and there were even like tunnels and things that were, you know, looters and and people coming and stealing from the sites over the centuries. But it was kind of forgotten until the 1600s, and then it really only over the last hundred or so years has it been being properly excavated. But anyway, before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to talk a little bit about what happened on the day of the eruption because one of the things that really also I think stands apart for this disaster and what happened is that there is Pliny the Younger. He wrote of what happened that day because his uncle Pliny the Elder went and did kind of like a rescue mission in Pompeii and he he gave a very detailed account of what happened. So this is a famous letter that he wrote that has given us a lot of information about what actually happened on that day. They think that it was misinterpreted when it said August 25th, 79 AD. They think it was actually more like October 24th, but honestly, what difference does that make?

Daniel 12:58

I mean, I've I think we've both become accustomed to finding slightly different details or accountings and dates on stuff. Yeah. Sometimes wildly different accounts.

Angela 13:07

Yeah, in the fall of 79 AD, basically. So I like didn't want to just like read off the whole letter, but there were so many parts of it that were so interesting that I am going to just read a lot of this word for word.

Daniel 13:20

Yeah. Let the man speak for himself.

Angela 13:23

Yes, let's hear, let's let Pliny say his piece. Pliny the younger. So he said, My uncle was stationed at Mizanim, where he was in active command of the fleet with full powers. On the 24th of August, asterisked, potentially 24th of October. About the seventh hour, my mother drew his attention to the fact that a cloud of unusual size and shape had made its appearance. So he like, you know, does us even a big enough favor to say when the eruption occurred. So I'm assuming like it's kind of well, the eruption hasn't occurred yet. They're starting to see the mountain awakening.

Daniel 14:01

Yeah. That would be ominous beyond belief. They had to have known of other volcanoes, right? Or is like the concept of all volcanoes?

Angela 14:09

I don't know, because I wouldn't run around saying they were so isolated because it was a seaport. There was so there were people from all over the world, and honestly, like slavery was a big thing at that time. I mean, like, apparently like third of one third of the population was probably slaves, and um they weren't all just like from Pompeii. Like, in fact, they've done a lot of excavation of, you know, they've found quite a bot quite a bit of bones and and bodies and things like that, and they've done a lot of like looking at the DNA, and they found um, because a a lot of the bodies that were left behind in some instances were the slaves who didn't have the means or the ability to get out. And so they could tell that they were from a lot of different nationalities. So people were coming from all over the world, so it's like you're right. Um, but at the same time, how common are volcanoes? Like, I can think of volcanoes in Hawaii, Mount St. Helens, and Vesuvius.

Daniel 15:08

Like, how common Well, there is Aetna on Sicily though. And isn't Aetna like constantly spewing? I don't know if it was at the time. And also, Sicily's a long that's still a way, it's I don't know. But they people traveled around.

Angela 15:23

I mean, it wasn't like that would have been so remote or anything. But also, maybe just I don't know.

Daniel 15:28

But they also were saying like everything was the gods. They didn't pro so they probably thought like Aetna was a god on the mountain.

Angela 15:36

Yeah, maybe they they just didn't correlate that these were two volcanoes.

Daniel 15:40

And like another another mountain that we didn't know was a volcano could all of a sudden erupt.

Angela 15:47

I feel like we know at this point, right? We do the handle on this. Okay.

Daniel 15:51

Scientists today know, yes. Yeah.

Angela 15:53

For a second I thought you were saying that we might not. I was like, I think we know. Isn't there like a super volcano that's about to destroy us all in Yellowstone?

Daniel 16:00

Yellowstone, yeah, yellow. Super side note. If you ever look at Idaho, you can see there's like a scar through Idaho that is the giant caldera of Yellowstone where it sits today, moving through tectonically moving through the North American continent. And that that is a so it's like a volcano that like when it blows, yeah, it's like the whole corner of Wyoming.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yikes.

Daniel 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Okay.

Daniel 16:23

I don't know. Maybe we'll do an episode about it. The curse of the impending Yellowstone.

Angela 16:27

How about just like the curse of the curse of being alive in the world today? Like, literally, I'm like, alright, I've done a couple financial crises, I did 9-11, did a bunch of really harrowing school shootings, uh, geez, what's uh pandemic. I'm fine with a super volcano adding into that list. I'm at this point where I'm just so desensitized.

Daniel 16:47

I think Chicago would be covered under ash.

Angela 16:49

So seriously? That far?

Daniel 16:51

Uh yeah, it's not a good situation. Like it's that's a world ender. Or like the major societal collapse after that because huge issues will happen.

Angela 17:01

The curse is just being alive, baby. Okay, anyway, well.

Daniel 17:05

Sorry, back to the ancient volcano, not the current volcano.

Angela 17:08

Take a little peek into our futures, shall we, and talk about what happened at Pump. Um so anyway, Pliny the Elder, he said he had been out in the sun, followed by a cold bath, and after a light meal, he was lying down and reading. Yeah, he called for his sandals and climbed up to a spot from which he could command a good view of the curious phenomenon.

Daniel 17:30

What an sounds like an afternoon.

Angela 17:32

I know. Like it kind of is really cool how he gives such a like slice of life of what Pompeii was like, because I mean you can definitely glean the slice of life when you're there because the ruins are just so well preserved. Um, because they were just basically encapsulated in this hard rock for um, you know, hundreds of years. But even just the way he describes it, it's kind of like like sometimes I feel like life seemed very hectic and like everything was harder than it harder than it needed to be, but like honestly, it wasn't. They were humans, they were just like us. Um so yeah, so he says, those who were looking at the cloud from some distance could not make out from which mountain it was rising. It was afterwards discovered to have been Mount Vesuvius. So I'm gonna kind of cut out a little piece here, but he talks a lot about how the cloud resembled a pine tree. Um, and I think he what he means is it was, as we know, what a volcano looks like it was spreading out. It was just kind of, you know, spreading into the air. He said at times it looked white and at other times dirty and spotted, according to the quantity of earth and cinders that were shot up. Pliny the Elder, he's out in the chaos, he's snooping around, he's peeking, and he's searching. I mean, because they can tell that stuff something, a major event is happening. So he's kind of like searching for his friends, he's searching for a man named Pomp Pompanius, and in the meantime, he he receives a written note from his friend's wife named Recatina, and she's like freaking out. I mean, I'm sure the entire city was just evolving into chaos and people were freaking out. And so he hops into his boat and he sets off to go and kind of like actually apparently it's like the first recorded rescue mission. So he goes and he kind of like Rectina's freaking out. He's also like, where's Pompinus?

Daniel 19:48

So Pliny the young Pliny the Younger being just a bro and just like looking out for his his friends.

Angela 19:54

No, this is Pliny the Elder. This was Pliny the Elder. It was Pliny the Younger who was the bro because he was like, Hey, do you want to come with me? And he was like, I'm studying. You gave like he like had a writing assignment that he needed to do, and it's like, babe, you're about to get a different writing assignment. It's this letter of what happens on this day. Um, yeah, Pliny the Younger was like, hard pass. Okay, sorry. See you when you get back.

Daniel 20:16

Hard to keep these Pliny straight.

Angela 20:18

I know. Um so Pliny the Elder hops in his boat and he heads straight for the point of danger. So and Pliny the Younger says, as he's in his boat, already ashes were beginning to fall upon the ships, hotter and thicker showers as they approached more nearly with pumice stones and black flints, charred and cracked by the heat of the flames, while their way was barred by the sudden shoaling of the sea bottom and the litter of the mountain on the shore. So things are starting to escalate, and we know obviously, even just from those layers of um, like the first layer before all the pyroclastic flow is all of this white pumice. So essentially, if you're in Pompeii, it's like I think he said it started at like seven o'clock in the morning is like when the smoke started rising. But I think other accounts say they think it was probably around noon that it really started to like kick up.

Daniel 21:10

I appreciate if I'm ever gonna have a volcano erupt, I would love it to happen at noon, not in like 7 a.m. Wake up nonsense. I'd love to be just like not have to get up early and freak out, like a nice, nice convenient volcano erupting time.

Angela 21:23

Volcano to consider for your own convenience, sure. And yeah, it was very convenient. It it lasted over the span of like 18 hours. So but your convenience could come and bite you because um so it starts with the raining down of this white pumice and um oh my god, by the way, side note, but not really, on the entire tour. So I try to avoid this shit because I just like hate, but I did one of those tours where you have like the little where you're like one of those dipshits in the group that like is screaming like I'm a terroristic. You have your little ear, yeah, no, you have your little ear piece in. Um, and then like the tour guide had a microphone and you're walking along like gravel a lot, and it kind of like hit me that that gravel sound sounded kind of like pumice stones hitting like that, like tapping.

Daniel 22:17

Yeah.

Angela 22:18

And I just kind of ha I mean it's it's so atmospheric there, and you really do start to feel yourself like you look around and you can you can put yourself in Pompeii.

Daniel 22:29

You had like a sound effect podcast moment where yeah.

Angela 22:33

I did. I was like thinking about it. I was like, when we do this episode, Daniel, let's let's see how good you are at this, Daniel. I would like when I listen back to this episode, I want sound effects, I want a whole dramatic retelling as I read this letter from Pliny the Younger. So, back at it. So he says, My uncle sailed in with the wind fair behind him and embraced Pompineus, who was in a state of fright, comforting and cheering him at the same time. So honestly, Pliny the Elder sounds like such a little gem. Like he just hops in his boat, he goes to find his friends and to help, you know, and see what he can do, and he's like trying to keep people calm. So he said that in order to calm his friend's fears by showing how composed he was himself, he ordered the servants to carry him to the bath. And after his ablutions, he sat down and had dinner in the best of spirits, or with that assumption of good spirits, which is quite as remarkable as the reality. Which, okay, so like I said, these rocks are just pummeling down on them, but it's like rain, it's like raining rocks, basically. And it is, you know, increasing. So it's interesting that he kind of reacts this way, and I think this was sort of the crossroads that was almost the crossroads between survival and death, is that some people were like, getting the thick out of here, and they left the city and they went out into other parts of Naples.

Daniel 23:53

Which that would have been me, by the way.

Angela 23:55

No, I would have well, I guess it depends on your capability and how much money you have, because it's like in I mean, even in any event, like when you think about like when the pandemic was hitting, it's like I thought I loved the book Station 11, and so I thought too much about it when we were in the pandemic, where it's like no matter how much money you have, or it depends on how much money or capability you have, like some people just wouldn't have been able to get out. Like it just wasn't an option to them. It's like we saw it in Katrina. Most of the people that were left behind in the hurricane were people who like were too sick or too ill, and of course, were in the hospitals, or they didn't have the money for it to be like an easy reality for them to just get like they didn't have a car that could take them out of the city. Like, honestly, when I moved to Chicago and I stopped and I sold my car, I don't have a car here. My first thought was like, oh, like I'm a sitting duck.

Daniel 24:42

Like if something happens, yeah.

Angela 24:44

Yeah, and like I think about it sometimes because my parents live like a distance enough away that it's easy for me to get there now. But I'm like, what if that was my like pandemic journey of like walking on foot trying to get home?

Daniel 24:55

Just gonna say that's why you gotta go on 30, 40 mile uh suburban hikes to train yourself for the coming apocalypse so you can walk across state lines.

Angela 25:04

Oh, great. So I don't think so. I feel like if Yellowstone blows, I'm just take me, Zenu. First round, first round draft, first round draft, please.

Daniel 25:15

First round draft for the heaven squad.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah. Um yeah.

Daniel 25:21

Or hell, who knows? Sorry, I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pre-judge where you want to be. It's gonna be more fun.

Angela 25:30

I don't I don't know if either of them are quite in existence. So I'll let you say you're ratty little shit. I'll let that slide. Um, but anyways, one thing I forgot to mention that's like a small tiny detail is that um Pliny the Elder, he didn't sail into Pompeii. He sailed into a place called Stabay, and it's about four kilometers southwest of Pompeii. So he is like, I mean, it's a it's covering a whole swath of area. It wasn't just like the volcano, just like pinpointing, like I'm mad at Pompeii, and I think Herculaneum is a bitch.

Daniel 25:59

Um Stebia, you're cool.

Angela 26:01

Yeah. Stabidi, you're in girl. You are one of my choice students. Okay, so anyway, he's hanging out, he's trying to keep people calm, and it says, in the meantime, broad sheets of flame which rose high in the air were breaking out in a number of places on Mount Vesuvius and lighting up the sky, and the glare and brightness seemed all the more striking owing to the darkness of the night. So, like, we are in the later stages of this going down, and honestly, I don't know exactly, but maybe already some of the pyroclastic flows have already occurred at this point, but they're just like not because okay, so I'll talk a little bit about Herculaneum. Herculaneum, where it was situated, it was right in the path, honestly, of like the so all this huge column of ash comes and like hot, hot, hot gas and ash is rising up into the sky, and then of course, at a certain point, what goes up must come down. So it comes down and it rains down upon and it creates like an avalanche essentially. And Herculaneum is right in the path of that avalanche. So all of the like it gets the first real big gust of this pyro first pyroclastic flow. And so what they've excavated of Herculaneum, they didn't find a lot of bodies in the city because they had done a pretty good evacuation of the city, but um this pyroclastic flow kind of just like whooshes through and just it's like 500 degrees Celsius, yeah, and it like just annihilates, like you were not surviving that. If you were still in the town, you were gone, you were dead, you were done.

Daniel 27:36

I mean, yeah, that's just like instant your baby.

Angela 27:39

Yeah, but this is where they actually learned a lot about so like and honestly, when you go to Herculaneum, it's like really also well preserved. You go down to the edge of the city because the the water of the sea used to come right up to the edge, but now it's receded out a bit. Um, but there were these like arches that were like the boat holds, basically. And you like walk down there and you see this right when you're coming into Herculaneum. There are just like hordes of skeletons in these boat holds. And um, and they're different. They're like they're the skeletons, they're not the plaster cast, they are the actual skeletons that they excavated. And so that's like one of the differences is that these this is where most of the people were, is they found all these skeletons in the boat holds and then kind of on the shoreline, like out on the beach. And a lot of them, like when they did all the tests and like the DNA, like a lot of them were slaves, like kind of how I was saying where they they couldn't get out, they didn't really have the means to go. So there were even some that they had like shackles around their ankles that they found. But you like I'll put some pictures of this, I guess, on our social media, but it's like that like horror scape. Like you literally, like I was a little bit like fuck. Like this would be a scene that would be like a jump scare in a horror movie. Yeah. Um, but they learned a lot. I mean, they did a lot of obviously excavation and they were able to learn a lot about what was happening, but they were like trying to understand why there were so few bodies throughout the city, why were all these people in this one place, and why did how did they all die? And one thing that they noticed about these skeletons is that a lot of them, their skulls had holes in them or their skulls had been kind of shattered open because the pyroclastic flow was so high. Did your brain boil and they found inside the skulls, they found even like the whatever scientifically happens when a brain boils, the particulates showed that clearly have been cause of death. And so, like, at least for them, it was very quick. But like, it just came through.

Daniel 29:45

They went from their the temperature increased so quickly that their heads exploded from their brains boiling. Yep. That I pressure. I guess that's if that happened so quickly, you probably wouldn't even have a chance to understand what was happening. Oh, but that's horrifying.

Angela 30:01

But it's like it is horrifying because it still is catching them in their last moments, and so it is that like horrifying jumble of skeletons where their mouths are open in agony like in it looks like an agony and they're they're crawling and they're but yeah, so you go see that in Herculaneum, that's readily available for your viewing.

Daniel 30:22

Um the world is just such a night, just such a horror show reality.

Angela 30:27

I know, but I think it's um I mean it's been I think it I don't know if actually no, I'm not gonna run around and say that this is like an important thing to see because these were human beings and they died in this horrific way. Not is not something that we're gonna learn a lesson from.

Daniel 30:40

Like nature.

Angela 30:41

I don't need the lesson to not be around volcanoes, although apparently according to you, I'm still fucked. Um I might be a bit of an alarmist, but um no, but actually one thing that was kind of interesting about Herculaneum, though that makes it really stand out is because that pyroclastic flow was so hot, it like encapsulated everything differently than it did in Pompeii because they they got caught in a little bit of a later um avalanche of and it was a little bit less hot. Um but first of all, they couldn't do the same kind of technique where they use the plaster to really like the plaster you can see what people were wearing. It's like very detailed because oh wow, like the they were covered so quickly by the by the ash and the soot, and it just kind of like created like a a capsule around them that you can see all the little details, like um the wrinkles in their clothing, like a disturbing shrink wrap, sort of, right? Yes, I mean it like yes, thank you for that um way of describing it. But in Herculaneum, I mean a lot of their bodies just disintegrated in that heat, so you really only see their um their bones, but it encapsulated everything. And so it's according to my tour guide, it is one of the it's extremely rare and one of the few places of like archaeological digs and research or whatever where um organic matter still remained. So like it's basically like in a legit time capsule. So like this is unheard of of things in that time, but there are wooden beds that you can see, like wood would have all just 2,000 years ago, wood would be gone. They found like grain in things, like so they could really understand what they ate and what I mean, like things extra got frozen in time. They found like an entire wooden ship so they could fully see what like how the ship was built and what it was, you know, all the maybe that ship should have set sail before they were trying. They wanted maybe it was Pliny the Elder, maybe it was his ship.

Daniel 32:47

He made one last run for a friend.

Angela 32:50

Yeah, maybe. Um, but I guess we'll find out because we actually have more from Pliny the Younger's little letter that he wrote. So he continues on to say, My uncle, in order to allay the fear of his companions, I like his vocab. There are some words in here that we don't often see. Um he said, in order to allay the fear of his companions, he kept declaring that the country, people, and their terror had left their fires burning and that the conflagration they saw arose from the blazing and empty villas. Like, how dumb were these people? Like, there's a whole entire volcano, and Pliny is just like, oh, someone left a stove on. Like, but I appreciate that he he really like it sounds like his main goal was to keep people calm, keep people orderly. Um, so it says then he betook himself to rest and enjoyed a very deep sleep for his breathing, which, owing to his bulk, was rather heavy and loud. So sorry, Pliny yellow that he is catching straight.

Daniel 33:43

Owing to his bulk is the nicest way to ever call someone fat.

Angela 33:49

Yeah, but like it's weird how blase, I guess he wasn't he wasn't in Pompeii and he wasn't in Herculaneum, he was he was in Stabae. But um he's been pretty pretty chill for this situation. Like, I don't think I would be like taking deep sleeps in this moment.

Daniel 34:10

He seems pretty cool, calm, and collective.

Angela 34:12

It kind of speaks though to like I guess you don't really know what you would do unless you were in that situation because, like you said, you would have gotten the heck out of there. Whereas for some people, they didn't understand that this whole thing was about to blow. Yeah, they didn't understand what a pyroclastic flow was, they didn't know that they were about to be avalanched by 500 degree gas. So in the moment, they're just feeling they're just hearing little pitter patter, and they might not even think it through enough to the point where they're like, oh, this is gonna create an accumulation of weight.

Daniel 34:43

Yeah.

Angela 34:43

Our roof might keep in. They didn't quite realize that until potentially it was too late. So, like, there were there were bodies that they found that clearly they had just been like in an area of I mean, that's why they like in Herculaneum, all of the people were down in those boat holds because that's where they would go in the earthquakes, because it was the most stable structure. So they don't know what the hell is going on.

Daniel 35:05

Were they yeah, they were cursed by not being able to know what was going on. Yeah, not having we all, you know, we're lucky enough that if another volcano if the Yellowstone volcano goes off, there'll be at least someone telling you what to do. It might not be the right thing to do, but it's probably your best chance. And they didn't have that, they were fending for themselves.

Angela 35:21

I know, but I do also think about it. Like, when I read Station 11, they were talking about characters in this like massive pandemic that breaks out about them like walking on foot long distances. I'm like, why would you do that? And it like makes me think about it. Like, I might be sitting here being like, Why would I be leaving my apartment? Like, I'm gonna go and try and get some food and hole up, but then like I just don't even know what would happen.

Daniel 35:44

Like, I in this day and age I mean, yeah, you your apartment seems safe, but maybe something collapses your whole building. Sorry to be that extreme, but yeah, you yes, yeah, you don't really know.

Angela 35:55

Or maybe I mean I guess like one of the plot holes I think in station 11 is that like they're in a big high rise. In the TV show is in Chicago and the book takes place in Toronto, but it's tomato tomato.

Daniel 36:08

You mean tomato Toronto?

Angela 36:10

Sorry. No. No. Um, but yeah, like I I mean I don't know in this day and age if like the grid went down. I would again out in the first round, like adios, I don't know what to do. Like, the smartest thing I've ever done is that I have like a little solar-powered charger and whatever thing that I have in my closet. So, I mean, assuming I get there and I have that, that's like the best shot I've got at survival. And I don't think it's gonna look good for me. But um, so like I don't know what I would do. Um, but like, so Pliny the Elder, he's sleeping, but then he continues on to say that like by this time the courtyard leading to the room he occupied was so full of ashes and pumice stones mingled together and covered to such a depth that if he had delayed any longer in the bedchamber, there would have been no means of escape. So like they're getting to an 11th hour moment where it's like if you've sheltered in home, you're getting trapped potentially, or you know, walls are caving in, the roof is caving in, and you didn't maybe foresee that happening. Things also he said there's particulate like on fire coming down through the air, so there's fires breaking out.

Daniel 37:21

I mean, that's hell raining down from above. Yikes.

Angela 37:24

Yeah, shit's devolving fast. And so people are getting trapped too. I think they've even found bodies that very clearly, like I said, some like were clearly holed up in places on their houses, and also there were some that, you know, had gotten to the point where they were like, we gotta run. So some of the like they actually learned quite a bit about the people because when they were excavating, they were able to, like I said, they poured the plaster and it gave them such a clear picture of these people and what they looked like and their clothing and everything about them as they fell to their death to the ground. But a lot of like there were groups of people that were sort of trying to get out of the city together and they could see like everything they were carrying on them. So they some of them had, I mean, I think one of them, the tour guide said he had like they found like a pouch with melted gold in it. Like that had been gold coins, but it had melted in the heat. And people had gems and things, like they had their riches on them, anything that they could pull together, and like some groups they like they were even able to count how much money they were bringing with them and really see, and like there was you know, families and stuff. So people like they got to this point where people were trying to get out a dodge. Yeah, but what killed everyone on there on their way out was again like the same as in Herculaneum, a pyroclastic flow came through just like I hate likening it to this, but I kept thinking in my head kind of like when the towers fell. Yeah, so people are trying to get out, they're they're trying to make their way out, and then the pyroclastic flow is essentially like the towers falling. You know, it's this event that they didn't see coming that just wipes them out, they're done.

Daniel 39:01

A tidal wave of deadly heat and gas, right?

Angela 39:03

And like Yeah, and it wasn't quite as hot. So we don't have the same amount of like preservation of the organic material in Pompeii as there was in Herculaneum, but again, like there was still I mean, you can clearly see all the frescoes, there's stuff written on the walls, there's there's all kinds of stuff. But anyway, so to continue on with um Pliny the Younger, his his story. It says, So my uncle was aroused and came out and joined Pompineus. So actually, this is interesting because we really kind of just went through this ourselves, but it says they held a consultation where they should remain indoors or wander forth in the open, for the buildings were beginning to shake with the repeated and intensely severe shocks of the earthquake, and seeming to be rocking to and fro as though they had been torn from their foundations. Outside again, there was a danger to be apprehended from the pumice stones through the though these were light and nearly burnt through, and thus, after weighing the two perils, the latter course was determined upon. With my uncle, it was a choice of reasons which prevailed, and the rest a choice of fear. So, like, he is clearly describing what obviously is they're getting to a point of desperation. Like they've made some bad choices by that moment of like, is it safer inside or outside?

Daniel 40:14

That's that's a horrifying thought.

Angela 40:16

Yeah, which I guess I keep talking about station 11, but like when it like it what it like confused me because someone it says like a character died of exposure, and I don't really understand that in general. Again, like why would I leave my house? Why, but then again, like if there was this major upheaval and this massive event happening, even just for me, like being in Chicago, I'm sure the streets would be a mixture of people trying to escape in the cast, and there's also I'm sure people taking advantage of the event and taking advantage of that chaos, and there's danger. And then also, yeah, like what if it happened in the middle of January? We get like two weeks here that it drops down below zero, and I don't leave my apartment anyway, and then I feel bad for every delivery order I get that I've asked someone to be out in this freakish cold, and it's like if it was the cold weather and I'm trying to walk a hundred miles to my parents' house, yeah, like I'm in I'm not gonna be doing so hot there, and I'm probably like it doesn't take long to die of exposure if you're not prepared for it.

Daniel 41:17

Yeah, it's as we keep finding in these stories. Nature is terrifying and nature does not care.

Angela 41:22

Nope. She will win. Um, okay, so it says they placed pillows on their heads and secured them with cloths as a precaution against the falling bodies, which I don't think they're talking bodies, bodies. I think they mean the police stone.

Daniel 41:37

They did the like pillows on their heads. That's like cartoonish.

Angela 41:40

Yeah. I wonder if they found that in any of the um I don't know. Like, I don't think Sabai had like I I don't think it fared even remotely close to Pompeii like that.

Daniel 41:53

So Well, there's survivors, so there obviously wasn't everything got engulfed in 500 degree gas.

Angela 41:59

So Yeah, like someone came and told Pliny the younger what happened. It wasn't like he divined this. So um it said elsewhere the day had dawned by this time, but there it was still night, and the darkness was blacker and thicker than any ordinary night. This, however, they relieved as best they could by a number of torches and other kinds of lights, which this was something that also the tour guide said is that they found a lot of people carrying lamps and things.

Daniel 42:25

Oh yeah.

Angela 42:26

Um they decided to make their way to the shore and to see from the nearest point whether the sea would enable them to put out, but it was still running high and contrary. A sheet, which was like interesting. I guess from the earthquakes, I wonder if they were like it sounds like when he was talking about being on his boat before, it almost sounds like there was some um tsunami. It said, like, remember how it said in the beginning, like the sea came out from underneath. It's like I think the earthquake was creating tsunamis. Oh, like maybe mini ones. So like just a whole fuck ton of shit. I'm getting us our explicit rating real quick here. Um so anyway, a sheet was spread on the ground, and on this my uncle lay, and twice he called for a drop of cold water, which he drank. Then the flames and the smell of sulfur, which gave warning of them, scattered the others in flight and roused him. Leaning on two slaves, he rose to his feet and immediately fell down again, owning, as I think, to his breathing being obstructed by the thickness of the fumes and congestion of the stomach, which that organ being naturally weak and narrow. Shots fired. Left and right. Um when daylight returned, two days after the last day he had seen, his body was found untouched, uninjured, and covered, dressed just as he had been in life. The corpse suggested a person asleep rather than a dead man, which I think I rem recall hearing this story in history class, and they think he had a heart attack because it sounds like he was not a not a slight man, a little chunker, and he was already having some breathing issues.

Daniel 43:51

What did they say? They said his what was the wording? His due to his heft or his um Owing to it owing to his bulk. He was a bulky man.

Angela 44:06

I'm fine with someone saying that if they're trying to be nice to me. Um So yeah, I mean that's the end of Tiny's letter that I pulled extras from.

Daniel 44:21

That's like such a harrowing account of the actual events of the eruption, though.

Angela 44:26

Yeah, and it's really interesting, um because like I said, in the excavation, they have been able to c so clearly like put the pieces together. So even having this letter that just kind of spells it out so well, they have been basically like like every archaeologist that I saw like talking about it, or even like the book that I started reading that I bought from the guest shop or the gift shop, um, it really talks about how they're basically like solving a riddle, they're solving a puzzle, um, and really trying to understand what happened to all of these people and kind of what what was that they can so clearly see even from like like they can tell who was a richer man by his toga versus a slave or a shorter toga. Um, like I said, they could count how much money that they have brought with them to flee the city. And I mean, Pompeii, I already am like, I want to go back to Rome and then take it's like an hour train from Rome and then to Naples, and then you can very easily hop on the Circum Vesuviana is the name of the train, which I think is a badass name for a train. But you can take the Circum Vesuviana um to Vesuvius very easily or to Pompeii very easily. And I could go back and spend like an entire day. And honestly, I enjoyed the tour that I went with, um, even though I felt like a little bit of a dip doing the whole like earbud, listening, following along like a little lemming. Um, because I really actually enjoy um there are a I guess this is just like a travel tip because I do travel quite a bit. A lot of those major places, like those major sites, they have apps. So like Versailles, for example. I went to Versailles and I was walking through the rooms and kind of just like boping along, like, okay, cool, sure, sure, sure. Ornate, gold, filigree everywhere, whatever, whatever. And then I remember that they had an app and I went and I was listening. They they a lot of times have like little guided tours and you can go along. Um, and it just like changes the whole thing where like instead of just this very ornate room, it like you just get so much of a clearer picture and they'll talk much more in depth about you know, people who lived in these rooms and who used them for things. So I'm assuming because I know I saw after the fact that I saw that Pompeii has an app and I really already want to go back and just kind of take it through at my own pace and really go from place to place because there's all these different like houses that you go in and you can really see the customs of the time. Like when you walk into um a more wealthy person's home, you immediately see that they have like a reservoir for rainwater in the middle, and there's um like a hole in the ceiling for the water to come down, and that was kind of their well, and like they would have had a table in front, and the things that would have been on that table would have sort of been their like look how rich I am. So like nice displays and stuff, and then like their frescoes and like the the nice things that they had and the ways that things were painted. Um which actually was kind of interesting because one of the things that they found that was sort of confusing, because like I said, there were those earthquakes, and then there were um there were a lot of like scaffolding things up, and there were a lot of houses that were under construction, and they weren't sure if it was like trying to fix things still from the earthquakes and the pre-shocks. But there was even like a really big fancy rich house that they found gardening tools in the dining room, and they were like, were they just like packing stuff up in a rush? Or had there been so much disruption of the socioonomic structure of Pompeii by a lot of people leaving that like freed slaves or other like lower class people were able to be like living in these houses, and maybe they had been in this rich house and it was actually like a gardening operation instead. So they were kind of like they could tell that like something it wasn't exactly what they were expecting, it wasn't quite right, things were a little bit awry. Um but yeah, but it is like crazy. So like the city is huge, but you also can like just it's so like the mosaics, there's such clear m mosaics that you can see in the floor and see things that were important to them. There's like um paintings of Greek mythology, like they were really obsessed with Greek mythology. In fact, in like the main forum, there's um like a temple to Jupiter, but then there also is like a temple to Apollo. So I was curious if anyone perhaps got spit in their mouth.

Daniel 48:58

Yeah. Come get your spit, everyone, in the temple of Apollo. We know what he's into, that sick fuck.

Angela 49:05

Yes, I raised my hand and I was like, um, did anybody did he spit in anyone's mouth, perhaps? And everyone, I already so another thing that was funny is that they there are a lot of penises everywhere. Um like in one of the bathhouses, like all of the there were like all these different tiles on the floor and like a mosaic, and there were all of these different images made in the mosaic, like of different mythological creatures or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

And one of them had like a penis, and I was like taking a picture of it from like different angles, and then it suddenly occurred to me that like 20 people are standing around me, and I'm just like perving out so obviously, just like and the angle of the penis, and they're like they're like, This girl needs to get laid.

Angela 49:46

Um but no, but I guess it was like a sign of good luck, actually in Italy, like that penises are good luck, yeah. Like that wavy-shaped horn. You can get all kinds of like oh yeah, it's like a good luck term or whatever. It's sort of is the evolution of like the good luck penises. And actually on some of the walls, there are penises that apparently point to the brothels, which kind of circling back around when I said uh pumpes, they're just like us. Yeah. Um, in one of the brothels, there's like pictures, like paintings on the walls, and they weren't decoration, they were the menu. So it was of people having actually the first one was of just like a man. So it was like if you are coming a man seeking a man, you just point. Um, but then the rest of them are of a man and a woman in different positions, so you could see which position to choose, and it was like doggy style and like um reverse cow, like so. I was just like looking at it, I was like, oh, cool, we're all still just doing the same thing. Yeah. Um, but what's really interesting is that like excavation still continues. There are still just random houses that have not been excavated. Uh, right now they've shifted a lot of their focus and energies towards um restoration and like maintaining what they found because they they did find a lot of like organic material there too, not quite the same as Herculaneum. But like, you know, they want to keep things uh, you know, well maintained and well protected. Wow. They've just been able to gain so much knowledge. But that kind of brings us to the curse, actually, of oh yeah.

Daniel 51:25

Um yeah, I feel like everything has been so awful, I forgot we'd have an actual curse to get to.

Angela 51:31

Yeah. So um a lot of this preservation really stems from the reality that for hundreds of years there were there was tunneling into Pompeii by looters. And when you think about it, people like it makes me sick to think how many of these poor people's bodies they probably desecrated.

Daniel 51:49

Yeah.

Angela 51:49

Because to do the plaster casts, it's because like the there's like a a hole essentially in the um in like like there's like one specific layer of like the pyroclastic flow that they know is where a lot of the bodies were. So like they would excavate around it and they'd be able to find a hole opening and then they would pour plaster in, and the hole is because that was where you know a body had them.

Daniel 52:12

Mm-hmm. And then yeah, and then the body decomposed.

Angela 52:16

Yeah, decomposed. Um, and so like there would be like kind of bones laying at the bottom, so they'd be able to take the bones out. So, really what the curse comes from is that Pompeii wasn't officially rediscovered until the 1500s. And I mean, there have been like some settlements around the eruptions, but like at the mountain, the last time it erupted was 1944. So, like it was active for a long time, so it wasn't the greatest place in the world to be.

Daniel 52:41

Yeah.

Angela 52:42

Um, but like people would tunnel into there, and then finally, like archaeologists actually there was one that he was like excavating for who knows what probably like Roman ruins, and he excavated a wall that said something about like the um mayor or equivalent of Pompeii, and he was just like, okay, and like didn't even tell anybody about it, like he was just like cool, cool, cool, like didn't notice this the significance of it. And then in 1863, um, an archaeologist named Giuseppe Fiorelli is the one who created that plaster technique, and so mid to late 1800s and early 1900s is when like the archaeological boom is occurring, and I'm sure that was when a lot was happening in Egypt as well. So, like they're getting more sophisticated, it's becoming a thing that people have a lot of interest in. So, same as in ancient Egypt where there was just that absolute boom in the Valley of the Kings, there's an absolute boom in Pompeii as well, which has can I mean like we are they're still working on excavating Pompeii, and most of Herculaneum is still actually under under the ground as well. So, but throughout the time, people are starting to come and visit Pompeii and they're taking things, they're taking bits of volcanic rock, they're taking chips of frescoes from the wall, and people are coming and they're like even describing, oh, I wanted a souvenir that I couldn't, like that nobody else would have. So they're literally taking tiles, taking bits of mosaic. And um this is where the curse of Pompeii comes from, because there is a modern urban legend going around that stealing these artifacts has brought misfortune, illness, and financial ruin upon those who commit this act, which I guess over a hundred tourists have returned stolen items. And like most notably in about 2020, there was a woman in Canada, her name is Nicole, and she, I don't know why this one of all of them became kind of like viral, but she sent a letter back um with some pumice rocks that she had stolen 15 years prior, and she said that the stones had bad energy and that she's had financial troubles and she gotten diagnosed with breast cancer twice since then. And she said in her letter, I took a piece of history captured in a time with so much negative energy attached to it. People died in such a horrible way, and I took tiles related to that kind of destruction. And then there was another letter from someone returning Stolen Rocks that said, We took them without thinking of the pain and suffering these poor souls experienced during the eruption of Vesuvius and their terrible death. They wrote, We are sorry, please forgive us for making this terrible choice. May their souls rest in peace.

Daniel 55:26

Oh.

Angela 55:28

I I think that there's two sides of this. One, potentially, yes, there is a curse, because and like I had re I read an article that I I skimmed it and I felt like it required maybe a little bit more of my own scholarly thinking and thought and think through. So I don't really want to delve into it too much, but it was kind of aligning like people's guilt or like their the curse kind of aligning with the sort of macabre background of the people in Pompeii, how they were more hedonistic and they, you know, obviously valued and looked at sex differently. They held slaves, they were pagans, and I'm like, ugh, come off it. So like I don't want to talk too much about it because I didn't I knew I needed to put a little bit more like academic thought into understanding what the author of the article was trying to say, so bet on me there. But like I I was kind of like turned off by the idea that like anything of it has to do with their because that was like just the way of the times, like paganism, multi-theism or polytheism, excuse me, like animal sacrifice, potentially I think I only heard of animal sacrifice, but whatever. Um slavery, sex slavery, like yeah, it was a not great, but it was a different time, and I don't think that it makes Pompeii like for dark tourism. Like, I don't like that. It doesn't feel it didn't feel right to me to assign something like dark tourism to Pompeii and to say that like, oh, these evil spirits or these spirits who partook in these acts would have been more you know susceptible to beans cursing people. I think honestly, I'm gonna stick with the idea of a curse because people should not be taking. I mean, I know we talked about this in our King Tut episodes, but it's like, who the fuck do you think you are like going to a place like Pompeii and taking chips of fresco off the wall? Like, first of all, it's massively selfish. You're ruining something that you have no business taking from mosaics, taking from, you know, taking tiles. It's like the the hubris of it. Um, like people need to understand, like, you are just a steward of this earth, and you need to not, you need to be taking care of things versus taking from them. And just to be able to go around and be like, oh, I have a piece of Pompeii that nobody else can get. It's like, no, like that's not cool. Nobody cares. Like, walk your ass over to the gift shop like I did and buy a mug and a little coin. A little, I got like a little metal replica of a coin.

Daniel 58:07

Oh.

Angela 58:07

Um, and I got a book called Pompeii by Mary Beard, The Life of a Roman Town. And that's how you should be gathering your souvenirs from a place like Pompeii and purchasing things that you can drink a lovely latte out of each morning and read up on the lives of the do-ins and the hot happenings of the people of Pompeii. It's just, again, I feel like we always get to this same end, and we will a million times going forward, because we're never going to be done with this podcast because there's so much cursing going on out there in the world. Because it's like hubris and just shit behavior and people acting foolish. And then instead of being able to say, which I guess the people in a half-assed roundabout way they sent the stones back, actually to the point where there's apparently like a little museum, like part of the museum at Pompeii, they have a sec, like a little section of it that has these letters and has the stones that were returned. But it's like it's a it's a heating thing, it's like a it's a heat of warning to be like, yeah, if you take shit from here, you're gonna get cursed. And whether there's a curse or not, I would like people to think that because it's like have some respect. And if it takes feeling like you might get seven years of bad luck or whatever placed upon you for just like behaving yourself, then I'm all for it. But it does sound again like it's one of those things where like the curse is a little bit light on the ground, the respect, unfortunately, is not. And so the consequences of being disrespectful and disrespecting this site where up to potentially between 12 and 18,000 people lost their lives in a very confusing and horrific event that would have occurred. Um it's just like it just galls me that people are think like taking chips from a fresco is appropriate. So I'm gonna say, well, I guess before I say, I may have already just said what I think. What do you think?

Daniel 59:59

Um, I mean, I I think I'm right where you are. A, it's sort of like there's not even like why would this be cursed other than a bunch of people dying. But I mean, there have been plenty of calamities and horrible things that have happened throughout history. There's no specific reason why this would necessarily be like a cursed place. I do think I like the idea, uh general concept of people saying, hey, it's cursed, don't take stuff. Because yeah, it's like everyone cannot come here and take things away. What if every single person did that? There'd be no artifacts left over. Same thing with like nature. It's like, oh, I want to take a rock home. It's like, well, yeah, but you just shouldn't. You shouldn't take things even if like even if it's not at you know, Pompeii or whatever. And I know we'll probably talk about eventually. There are other places that have similar cursed ideas where like you can't take a rock from a certain park or stuff like that, and people return them. So I'm fine if we're if we're gonna tell people things are cursed to stop them from being assholes and taking shit and walking away with things that are not theirs and that they should not mess with, and that if any shit one should be looking at, it should be an archaeologist. Uh, I'm fine with that. And maybe that, you know, I don't believe there's a curse there, but I'm happy for curses to be doing that legwork in our culture and in our society. I would call this definitely, I would say, not literally cursed, but cursed-ish because the cursed story is doing some good work.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Maybe cursed, maybe not. We'll see you next week.

Angela 1:01:30

Cursed-ish is an ish media production. It explores stories of alleged curses, historical mysteries, and supernatural claims. While we do investigate the history and the evidence behind these stories, ultimately you should decide for yourself what to believe. If you have questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share, send us a hex at uh oh at cursedish.com. That's uh oh h all one word at cursed dish all one word.com