Even though I had a fairly good idea of what to expect, nothing (yet) can replace the experience of physically being there and wandering around the streets and buildings of Pompeii, imagining how it all might have once been. The site is extensive, covering around 66 hectares, only two thirds of which has been excavated. A couple of hours here would be torture for someone who has no interest (once you've seen one Roman ruin, you've seen them all, right?), but I could have spent two days making sure I had seen everything possible. As it turned out, my visit was about five hours, including a refreshment break, which was probably enough in the heat of July.
Like many experiences for me, it turned out to be not quite as I anticipated. I had built up the idea that a visit to Pompeii was like stepping back into history — more along the lines of something like the Black Country Museum! However, most of the buildings were in a far more ruined state than I expected, and some of the side streets were clearly off-limits because of the structural condition of some of the ruins. As shown above, the presence of grass and weeds was not good to see either: I know what damage they do to my front path and driveway, which are some two millennia younger!
It was not all disappointment. The amphitheatre was an unexpected pleasure, and the earliest known example in the Roman world. Standing in the midst of the arena, it was easy to visualise what it must have been like full of people in the tiered seating. No doubt that its massive civil engineering helped it to withstand the damaging earthquake intact some 13 years before it was then buried under metres of volcanic ash.
Something about the paved streets did get me thinking. The present street surface is generally very uneven, and care needs to be taken to avoid ankle injuries. I suspect that the earlier earthquake might have had something to do with that, and the original surface would surely have been much more even and level. The street crossing stones (like stepping stones across a stream) and high kerbstones are a distinctive feature of Pompeii. It is said that these are due to the lack of a proper sewage system — the streets were in effect open drains -- and the crossing stones and high kerbs kept Roman feet away from the filth!I was especially intrigued by the cart wheel ruts in the streets. I imagine that a number of learned papers have already been published on the subject, but they reminded me of check rails on railway turnouts. The ruts were especially apparent around crossing stones, as shown in the image above. (The metal bridging pieces are modern, and appear to protect some sort of pipe?) So were they a result of heavy traffic wear; or had the Romans worked out that by cutting grooves in the street surface, it would help to guide horse-drawn traffic through the crossing stones without mishaps? My money is on the latter, based on what I observed on the site. (The ancient Greeks had already discovered and used this idea elsewhere.)
Perhaps I then started to get carried away... So if Pompeii has a kind of urban tramway system, what happened if horse-drawn vehicles approached from opposing directions? Some of the side streets are narrow and single carriageway only. Can a two-wheeled vehicle be turned around in a narrow street with high kerbstones? Did the Romans suffer traffic congestion and gridlock too? Were there traffic signs and one-way systems? I trust someone has already thought of this long before, but this is a perfect application for Experimental Archaeology, to answer these sorts of questions -- and perhaps re-interpret what has already been discovered.
