Both lie on the ground, petrified. One's head tilted back, the other's face turned to the ground, arms folded with hands on their chests, these two men were surprised by the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD. . Their skeletons were recently unearthed by Italian archaeologists who were excavating the villa of Civita Giuliana, located 700 m northwest of the city. They poured plaster into the cavities left by the decomposition of the flesh in the hardened ashes, using the technique invented in 1867 by Giuseppe Fiorelli, and thus reconstituted the bodies lying on the ground. The effect is striking, with the two men frozen in their agony. Both were in a 2.20 m wide corridor, when they were probably trying to flee. According to Massimo Osanna, the general director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, perhaps they wanted to take refuge in an underground space, called cryptoporticus, to be better protected there.
Dress clues
The youngest, aged 18 to 25, was 1.56m tall and wore a short tunic. His bones retain the marks of hard and grueling work, suggesting that he was probably a slave. The other man, possibly the owner of this slave, aged 30-40, was 1.62m tall and was wearing a woolen coat.
This is the first time in 150 years, and thanks to new techniques, that it is possible to identify the clothes worn by victims at the time of the disaster. In addition, the presence of this woolen coat seems to confirm that the eruption took place in October, and not in August, as has long been believed. The excavations undertaken by Massimo Osanna in recent years had already changed the official date in use until then:a graffiti found in a house under renovation at the time of the destruction of the city mentions in fact:"The sixteenth day before the calends of November , he indulged in food to excess. That is the date of October 17.