Another documentary on Pompeii?

There is no shortage of documentaries on topics from the ancient world. Some topics even seem to have a new documentary about them every year — Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, and Pompeii to name a few. So, when I learned that there was going to be a new documentary on Pompeii, my reaction was ‘Not another one!’

However, from what I have learned about Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston from the National Geographic, this is not simply a rehashing of the same stories from the city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, as many documentaries are. Instead, this documentary incorporates the work of the Pompeii Survivors Project led by Steven L. Tuck, a Professor of History at Miami University, that has catalogued evidence for potential survivors from both Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Tuck’s work has actually been featured in Ancient History before, in an article by Stephanie M. Matthews in issue 44, and I have actually reviewed his book, Escape From Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Its Survivors, published this year by Oxford University Press, in the next issue of the magazine.

Although the documentary has received mixed reviews, with its overly dramatic presentation being the main critique, it is very surprising and refreshing to see such new research being so quickly incorporated into popular documentaries.

Have you watched the documentary yet? What did you think of it?