ANCIENT POMPEII

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Pompeii was a very popular city in Ancient Rome. It was a large city in a/an (1)..... location for trade as well as farming. Many (2).....  Romans had summer homes in Pompeii and they would go there for their summer holidays. The people of Pompeii enjoyed their entertainment. There was a large amphitheatre, a number of smaller theatres for plays, celebrations, and musical concerts. Vulcan was the name of the Roman god of fire. Every year people celebrated August 23 with festivals to honour Vulcan. August 24th, 79 AD was a holiday. There were happy people in the streets of Pompeii. They were shopping, walking around the town or meeting friends. Suddenly there was a very loud noise and an explosion. People saw smoke coming out of Mount Vesuvius. They were surprised, as they did not know that Vesuvius was a volcano. A huge cloud of ash, small stones, rocks and (3).....  gas rose high into the sky. A strong wind blew the cloud toward Pompeii. After the volcano first erupted shortly after noon, the thick ash turned everything black. Because of the ash in the sky people couldn’t even see the sun. Some people left everything behind and escaped the city, others went into their houses either to take their valuables and clothes or to just to avoid the ash but the ash kept falling. Around 7 a.m., nearly 19 hours after the first (4).....  , the city was completely covered in a mix of ash and rock. The whole town was buried seventeen meters under the ground. For more than a thousand years the city of Pompeii was buried and gone. In 1748 a group of explorers who were looking for ancient (5).....  arrived in the area and began to dig. They found the ashes and realised that they were on a buried city. Scientists found many other interesting things as they dug the ash. The buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen where they were. The ash helped everything stay as they were almost two thousand years ago. Today Pompeii is a very famous tourist attraction in Italy. The archaeological (6).....  of Pompeii cover around 440,000 square meters. Pompeii is a big buried city with squares, temples, baths, public buildings, private villas, and shop. It takes three days to visit the entire city. Most tourists spend about half a day visiting the city centre, some famous houses, theatres and a few shops. They can even see life-size sculptures of people that died under the ash.