World1 min(s) read
Published 09:54 22 Nov 2020 GMT
The bodies of two men - believed to be a master and his slave - have been unearthed in the ancient Italian city of Pompeii.
Their remains were preserved attempting to flee to safety as hot ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius enveloped the city and its inhabitant nearly 2,000 years ago.
As reported by the New York Post, Italian officials announced Saturday (November 21) that parts of the men's skulls and bones were discovered next to each other during the excavation of a once-elegant villa that boasted a beautiful panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea.
Per The Associated Press, experts working at the site believe the two men escaped the initial ashfall spewed from Mount Vesuvius - but sadly died the next morning after a second powerful blast entombed them in more than six feet of ash.
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As has become common practice on the historic Pompeii site, archaeologists poured liquid chalk into the cavities left by the decaying bodies in the ash and pumice, resulting in "statues" being formed showing the two men in their final "death throes".
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Experts have revealed that both men were lying on their backs at the time of their deaths, with the slave believed to be aged between 18-25. His compressed spinal column has led archaeologists to hypothesize that he did manual labor - like that of a slave.
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The other man is believed to have died aged between 30-40. He is described as having "a robust bone structure".
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Writing on their official social media pages, officials from the Parco Archeologico di Pompei (Archaeological Park of Pompeii) provided the following statement on the remarkable find:
"What the writer Luigi Settembrini defined as 'the pain of death that takes on body and form' once again takes shape in the excavations at Pompeii, in the form of men who lost their lives during the eruption, the traces of whose death throes have remained imprinted in the ash for two thousand years.
"During the current excavations at Civita Giuliana, around 700 meters northwest of Pompeii, in the area of the large suburban villa where, in 2017 - thanks to a joint operation with the Carabinieri and the Public Prosecutor's Office of Torre Annunziata aimed at stopping the illegal trafficking carried out by grave robbers - the servile part of the villa had been discovered along with the stable containing the remains of three harnessed horses, two skeletons of individuals caught in the fury of the eruption have been found.
"Just as in the first excavation campaign when it was possible to create plaster casts of the horses, today it has been possible to make casts of the two victims who were found near the cryptoporticus, in the noble part of the villa which the latest investigations have focused on.
"The bodies were found in a side room of the cryptoporticus, in the form of a passage-way below the villa which led to the upper floor."
Per History.com, the ancient city was destroyed in 79AD after an eruption from Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii under a "thick carpet" of volcanic ash.
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One witness of the eruption wrote how the dust "poured across the land" like a flood, and shrouded the city in "a darkness... like the black of closed and unlighted rooms".
It is believed 2,000 people died in the eruption, resulting in the city being abandoned for years.
Explorers eventually rediscovered the site back in 1748. History.com states that "the buildings, artifacts, and skeletons left behind in the buried city have taught us a great deal about everyday life in the ancient world".
