Ryan Shea

Pompeii is a notorious city, known to many, for its untimely destruction at the hands of Mt. Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD. While its ruins have been explored multiple times in the past, there has been little of it that’s been salvaged for scientific research, or at least, until now. Excavators have recently uncovered the remains of a chariot from the old days of Pompeii which could potentially serve as a scientific breakthrough for the field of preservation.

The ruins of Pompeii are typically known for containing shattered cobblestone and the ashy remains of the citizens who never dared to flee from the oncoming danger which have miraculously never been lost to time, even though they died over a thousand years ago. Some of the fine arts and architecture that the citizens of Pompeii created have never reared their heads up until this point, thanks to it all being caught in the volcanic crossfire.

Recently, a chariot has been discovered surprisingly intact, showing that a lot of the higher-end goods made by Pompeii’s citizens were hand-crafted from iron, tin, wood, and bronze. Italian cultural minister Dario Franceschini claims that this discovery is just the beginning for Pompeii’s preservational discoveries, as the city, “continues to amaze us with its discoveries and it will do so for many years, with 20 hectares still to be dug up.” What’s yet to be discussed is what this sort of finding could entail for future history documentation.

Consider the fact that the story of Pompeii’s destruction is very well-documented; discussed in many history classes, though details on the city itself were left rather ambiguous due to how few one-to-one artifacts and architecture could be salvaged and analyzed. The discovery of this chariot expands upon preservational efforts through helping to further establish the kind of economy and traditions linked with the city in its prime. Through such a discovery, the past is bound to be less muddied and vague, which will help to inform future generations of the underlying truths lost to time. All in all, the unearthing of this one chariot is bound to have a lasting impact that no previous excavations of the city have been able to achieve.