Pompeii, the city which was buried under several feet of volcanic ash and pumic in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, continues to unveil new secrets. Now, a new study into recent excavations at the archaeological site has uncovered the final moments of some of its residents.
A family tried to blockade themselves in a room, the research revealed. In an attempt to escape the volcanic ash, the victims had tried to take refuge in a bedroom and blocked the door with a bed. The scene was discovered at the House of Elle and Frisso, named after the mythological painting found in one of the rooms.
Archaeologists have been able to reproduce a cast of the bed after they identified the shape of the wooden frame in the solidified ash.
“Excavating and visiting Pompeii means coming face to face with the beauty of art but also with the precariousness of our lives,” the Director of the Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel said, The Independent reported.
“In this small, wonderfully decorated house we found traces of the inhabitants who tried to save themselves, blocking the entrance to a small room with a bed of which we made a cast. This is because the lapilli, the volcanic stones that risked invading the space, entered through the opening in the roof of the atrium.
“They didn’t make it. In the end the pyroclastic flow arrived, a violent flow of very hot ash that filled here, as elsewhere, every room, the seismic shocks had already caused many buildings to collapse.”
During the excavations, the remains of at least four individuals, including a child, were found.
Other items found at the site were a set of bronze pottery including a ladle, single-handled jug and shell-shaped cup, as well as a bronze amulet. These amulets were worn by male children until they reached adulthood and likely belonged to the child who was found.
The House of Elle and Frisso is named after a mythological painting of Phrixus riding the Chrysomallo and his sister Helle shortly before drowning found in one of its rooms.
For the past 250 years, excavations at both sites have attested to the chaos that some of their citizens faced in their final moments. One famous cast shows a man crouching on the ground with his head bent forward, in the hopes that it would better protect himself from the asphyxiating gases.
