They find in Pompeii the remains of two victims of the eruption of AD 79. C.

The eruption must have surprised both victims as they tried to flee. One was a young man, 1.56 meters, dressed in a short robe and was probably a slave. The other was a man of 1.62 meters, between 30 and 40 years old.

The remains of two victims of the eruption in Pompeii of the year 79 d. C. were discovered and their bodies could be reconstituted in the position they had at the time of their death, the famous Italian archaeological site announced in a statement on Saturday.

The two skeletons were found during excavations about 700 meters northwest of Pompeii, in a large villa on the outskirts of the famous Roman city.

The remains were in a 2.20 meter wide corridor that gave access to the upper floor of the villa, where archaeologists had detected cavities in the hardened ash layers. By pouring plaster into these cracks, according to the technique invented by Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1867, they were able to reconstitute the bodies in their original position.

The eruption surely surprised both victims as they tried to flee. The first, a young man, 1.56 meters tall, dressed in a short tunic and who must have been between 18 and 25 years old, was probably a slave, as several vertebrae compressed due to hard physical work suggest. Its head is tilted back and its teeth and skull are visible.

The second victim has his arms folded with his hands on his torso, in a position similar to that of other victims found in Pompeii. It is about a 1.62 meter man, between 30 and 40 years old, dressed in a tunic and a coat and is probably the owner of the young slave found next to him.

Pompeii, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. C., is the second most visited site in Italy after the Colosseum in Rome, with about four million visitors in 2019. Only a third of the city, which currently extends over 44 hectares near Naples, has been excavated by the archaeologists.