Today I managed to put names to 3 of my fatality related phobias:
1. Athazagoraphobia - the fear of being forgotten. What can I say I'm an attention seeker. The idea of being lonely before I die or not being remembered when I'm gone is horrible.
2. Hydrophobia - the fear of drowning. I know this is supposedly the most painless way to go aside from in your sleep but the idea of waiting for the water to fill your lungs, knowing you are going to die, 3 minutes would probably feel like 40.
3. Pyrophobia - the fear of being burnt alive. This one came into fruition when I took a trip to the ruins of Pompeii in the italian region of Campania a few years back and saw the plaster casts of the victims.
The archaeologists excavating the site found the remains of many people in the last position they were in when the ash and gas fell over Pompeii which was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Most were choked by the ash and pumice-stone dust or killed by the accompanying poisonous gas. The archaeologists filled the places where the bodies were with plaster in order to get a perfect match for individual body position and facial expression.
I have been doing a lot of digging on the family computer over Christmas and came across these pictures again, Pompeii is one of the craziest places I have ever been to and I'm pretty ashamed of myself for almost forgetting it. So this more of a memo to myself than a blog. But if you are interested in reading a more sophisticated overview of the casts or the subsequent exhibition of them check out this article from the Smithsonian (This list of phobias and meanings is a pretty good read too).
