Thursday Doors – March 14, 2019

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). 

The Doors (doorways actually) of Pompeii

For history buffs the ancient Roman city of Pompeii is a magical place to visit.

Easily accessible via the Circumvesuviana commuter rail line from Naples, the site is an archaeological treasure that is still being excavated today.

It was a surreal feeling walking into this place on a drizzly gray morning.

Having read various historical accounts and seen documentaries about what happened here on that fateful day in 79 AD, the ruins of Pompeii have fascinated me since I was a little boy.

For door lovers however, one thing to remember is that when you see/hear the word ‘ruins’ chances are the place is going to be a little light on actual doors 😉

One of the few actual doors I found was this door to a caretakers building. And no, it certainly is not part of the 2000 year-old ruins.

I won’t bore you all with a long recounting of the history that most already know, but the basics go something like this:

Rather fitting to see a ghost door in a ghost town.

Pompeii was a prosperous Roman port town with a population of about 2000 when a sudden violent volcanic eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius wiped out the town and its inhabitants, burying everything in over 20 ft (6m) of volcanic ash and pumice.

Rediscovered in the late 1740’s, for the last 270 years or so archaeologists have been excavating the site, leading to some fascinating insights about daily life in ancient Roman times.

For example, this might seem odd at first but this hand carved hole cut into the edge of a curb makes perfect sense as the ancient equivalent of a hitching post. A place to tie up livestock for a few minutes while stopping to conduct business or step into a shop on one of the town’s busier streets.

The skies cleared as the morning turned to afternoon, making for some wonderful shots of the town site and its ruins.

Mount Vesuvius ominously standing watch in the distance.

We explored the remains of fancy homes containing great artwork,

and mosaic tiled floors,

The predominant thought running through my head all day long: “This was done 2000 years ago!”

back alleys,

thermal baths,

various businesses and shops,

and temples

Buildings and areas that are deemed too fragile or unstable for visitors are gated or fenced off.

But the site is so huge and there is so much to see that the few fences, ropes, and gates are hardly noticed.

The number of artifacts uncovered so far is now into the tens of thousands and many of the larger ones are catalogued and stored on shelving outdoors.

The plaster casts made of those who died and were buried under all of that ash are among the most popular (and most morbid) attractions.

Though admittedly this was not the greatest place for doors, visiting Pompeii was not only a humbling experience, for me it was a life-long dream come true.

Thanks for stopping in and joining me on this tour 🙂

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