A journey through time into the “real world” of ancient Pompeii. The 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius relived to raise risk awareness and as an opportunity for experiential learning

The 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which “destroyed-preserved” Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia e and Oplontis, left in its wake a huge number of various artifacts, data and documents that continue to come to light during archaeological excavation campaigns, giving back the eloquent features of the daily life and urban, economic and cultural organisation of the towns affected. This paper looks at a series of aspects relative to their social life, as well as elements from the casts that have made it possible to add new information regarding the eruptive phases and resulting phenomenology and the reactions of the inhabitants, found in all too telling positions that indirectly describe what they must have experienced and what action they decided to take. From a geographical point of view, the symbolic and material meanings steeped in the 79 AD eruption take on exceptional connotations when considering that at present the Naples Metropolitan city records very high building and population density, so that the risk level for a possible resumption of activity increases dramatically, making it necessary to glean as much information and insight from that tragic event in order to raise awareness to the issues of geodynamic risk. Among the objectives of this work is that of providing various cues which highlight the significance of fieldwork in the Pompeii site, aimed at making people understand, in a process of research-action and active and participatory didactics, what it means to live in a context in which in the past the absolute protagonist, Mount Vesuvius, offered a vivid testimony of Plinian eruption, which even today can be revisited in its most important phases in a dramatic and engaging journey in time.