Friday, February 18, 2011

Mt. Vesuvius, it's erupting!


I spent a day in Italy in the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii, both in the shadow of the great volcano, Mt. Vesuvius.

Almost 2,000 years ago, Vesuvius erupted and buried the surrounding area under millions and billions of tons of ash, mud and rock. It's been estimated that the explosion was the size of two Hiroshima-sized atom bombs.

The people of the area were caught as they were--suspended in time--at the moment they were overtaken by the effluvia of the explosion. They are in eternal in flagrante delicto.

It occurred to me this morning, what if a modern advertising agency was engulfed by lava? What would archaeologists 2,000 years from now think we do, what clients do?

They would conclude, I am sure, we sit in meetings all day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They'd find 2,000 year-old briefs that didn't make an ounce of sense.