This handout photo provided by the Pompeii Archaeological Zone’s press office Tuesday, May 16, 2023, shows one of two discovered skeletons that archaeologists believe were men who died during a powerful earthquake. Died by falling wall. They were accompanied by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which was destroyed. The ancient city of Pompeii in the year 79 of our era.
The discovery of two skeletons buried under a collapsed wall at the Pompeii archaeological site suggests that many deaths occurred not only from the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the first century AD but also from volcanic ash and gas. It was also accompanied by powerful earthquakes, experts said on Tuesday.
Two skeletons, believed to be of two men at least 55 years old, were found at a site called Casti Amanti (House of the Chest Lovers) under a wall that collapsed before the area was covered by volcanic material.
The area was being redeveloped at the time of the eruption in 79 AD after an earthquake a few days earlier.
“In recent years, we know that violent and powerful seismic events were occurring at the time of the eruption,” said Gabriele Zuchtrigel, director of the Pompeii archaeological site.
He added that new archaeological techniques and methodologies “allow us to better understand the inferno that destroyed the city of Pompeii in two days, killing many of the inhabitants”, which allowed us to visualize the dynamics of death from the last second. allowed to be determined.
More than 1,300 bodies have been found at the archaeological site south of Naples over the past 250 years.
