<P> Pompeii was an ancient Roman town - city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompei . Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 . </P> <P> Archaeologists believe that the town was founded in the 7th or 6th century BC by the Osci or Oscans . It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, and was conquered and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after it joined an unsuccessful rebellion against the Roman Republic . By the time of its destruction, 160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, a gymnasium, and a port . </P> <P> The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash . Evidence for the destruction originally came from a surviving letter by Pliny the Younger, who saw the eruption from a distance and described the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder, an admiral of the Roman fleet, who tried to rescue citizens . The site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748 . The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for more than a millennium because of the long lack of air and moisture . These artefacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana . During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies . This allowed archaeologists to see the exact positions the people were in when they died . </P> <P> Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years . Today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year . </P>

When did they find the ruins of pompeii