Fiery flows gushing from the lava of Mount Vesuvius led to the destruction of the people of Pompeii. There are frozen human figures in the traces of the disaster, which are still seen by thousands of visitors. However, it was still a mystery how the people in this ancient city lost their lives in petrified positions. Recently, the true face of the horrific incident has been revealed.
According to the news in Milliyet; When we go back to 79 AD, no ordinary day was expected for Pompeii. The people of Pompeii, on the borders of Italy, woke up to the new day with the fear that Mount Vesuvius was preparing for a big eruption. The eruption of Vesuvius plunged the people of Pompeii into a terrible disaster. The fate of those in the ancient city had already been determined. Some tried to escape, some took refuge in the sea, but all their efforts were in vain. Suddenly, all living things in the city lost their lives in terror. What is left behind is an ancient city full of life stories and petrified figures. So, what was the reason for the sudden disappearance of thousands of people?
New Details About the Death of Pompeii People
The petrified human figures in this ancient city continue to attract the curiosity of many tourists for years. While various theories are still put forward about the moments of horror experienced by the people of Pompeii, discussions on the manner of death of the people who fell victim to the disaster continue. While Pompeii is considered one of the best-preserved disasters in human history, scholars still disagree on exactly how thousands of Roman citizens lost their lives.
For a long time, it was thought that they died as a result of being unable to breathe among the giant ash clouds created by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. But a new analysis published recently has elucidated in more detail the deaths of some of the victims of the disaster associated with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
In recent weeks, a study published in the world-renowned scientific journal PLOS ONE, based on the most comprehensive analysis of bones from the site, has presented some important findings about the demise of the people of Pompeii.
According to the study, not all Pompeii victims may have lost their lives in a single disaster. Reportedly, at least some of the city’s residents tried to escape after experiencing the disaster, but there was a period of time when choking ash blocked their way. Because the eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place in two stages.
In the first stage, the volcano spewed hot gas, ash and powdered pumice stone; This led to roofs collapsing and trees falling in Pompeii. Although some people in the city were crushed at this stage, many managed to escape. Then came a turbulent mass of hot ash and lava, a series of ‘pyroclastic surges’ (embers of ash and lava from volcanoes fed by hot gases and hot currents rushing down volcanic slopes) that destroyed what people and structures remained. The second stage is considered the most dangerous, according to archaeologist Gianni Gallello of the University of Valencia, one of the authors of the study.
They Survived the First Stage of the Explosion
During excavations at Pompeii in the 1870s, strange air pockets were discovered among the rubble. These cavities contained the bones of many people. He froze these moments in time by injecting plaster into the victims’ bodies to create them as three-dimensional models. Caitlin Barrett, an archaeologist at Cornell University, described these plaster casts as “a vivid, intimate and moving testimony” to the last moments of the people of Pompeii.
Using non-destructive X-ray analysis, scientists determined the composition of both the bones and the cast and compared them with other burnt bones from Rome and Valencia. Gallello and his team aimed to reconstruct the history of the people who experienced the Pompeii disaster.
The team examined seven casts taken from Pompeii. Six were found near Porta Nola, the city gate, while the seventh came from the ruins of a bathhouse. The bodies at Porta Nola were placed on top of a thick layer of pumice stone, indicating that they had survived the initial phase of the eruption and attempted to escape the city after the pumice stone stopped falling.
Gallello noted that walking through this debris could have been extremely difficult, as two people they examined had broken legs and another appeared to have used a fallen tree branch as a makeshift walking stick.
Burning Followed by a Slow Death
Bones in plaster casts show characteristics similar to burnt remains in terms of chemical composition. But other evidence points to a slow death followed by combustion, Gallello claims. The skeletons examined in this study were in a prone position, which occurs as a result of slow asphyxiation or exhaustion, rather than the boxer position expected in a quick death. Additionally, traces of plaster suggested that some victims covered themselves with clothing to avoid inhaling ash.
One of the authors of the study, Dr. “When the bones were exposed to high temperatures caused by pyroclastic waves and magma flows, the victims probably died anyway from inhaling poisonous gases,” Llorenç Alapont said. “The victims quickly suffocated and were simultaneously covered in ashes as they tried to escape,” Gallello said. However, the researchers emphasized that these findings do not mean that all of the more than 2,000 victims at Pompeii died this way.
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