Two skeletons from Pompeii reveal a new story about deaths in a mega-disaster

As if the devastating eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD wasn’t enough, a series of violent earthquakes also contributed to the destruction of the city of Pompeii and the deaths of many of its inhabitants. Scientists are now beginning to understand how these two natural disasters influenced each other so strongly. A new study by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and the Pompeii Archaeological Park has found that these earthquakes may have made the eruption even more deadly.

This work is among the first studies to address the complex task of describing simultaneously occurring earthquakes that occurred before and around the time of a volcanic eruption. This is difficult because volcanic and seismic effects often occur simultaneously or directly after one another. The explosive volcanic effects can overshadow those caused by earthquakes, and vice versa. The results are described in a study published July 18 in the journal Frontiers of geosciences.

(Related: A fresco discovered in Pompeii looks like ancient pizza – but it is probably focaccia.)

“These complexities are like a puzzle where all the pieces must fit together to reveal the full picture,” study co-author and INGV volcanologist Domenico Sparice said in a statement. “We have proven that seismicity during the eruption played a significant role in the destruction of Pompeii, possibly influencing the decisions of Pompeians who faced an inevitable death.”

In order to reconstruct how the eruption and earthquakes so many years ago affected the buildings and people of Pompeii, a better understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships is crucial.

“We had earthquakes for several days”

The Roman author Pliny the Younger documented the violent shaking of the ground during the volcanic eruption in two famous letters. In his second letter he wrote: “We had earthquakes for several days, which were not particularly alarming, since they are so common in Campania. But that night they were so violent that it felt as if everything was being shaken and overturned. My mother came hurriedly to my room and we sat together in the courtyard overlooking the sea.”

Like Pliny, many Pompeians were going about their daily lives when the eruption began sometime around noon on August 24, 79 AD. For about 18 hours, small particles of rock and ash rained down on the city. Many who sought shelter from the rubble believed they were safe. At least until the ground began to shake.

“The people who were unable to leave their shelters may have been overwhelmed by earthquake-induced collapses of already overloaded buildings. This was the fate of the two individuals we recovered,” Valeria Amoretti, a co-author of the study and an anthropologist who heads the Laboratory of Applied Research at the Pompeii Archaeological Park, said in a statement.

Skeleton Clues

While excavating the Casa dei Pittori al Lavoro (which translates to “House of the Working Painters”) in Pompeii, the team noticed something strange about the collapsed buildings.

“We found strange features that did not match the effects of the volcanic phenomena described in the volcanological literature on Pompeii. There had to be another explanation,” study co-author and INGV volcanologist Mauro Di Vito said in a statement.

They found two skeletons with severe fractures and injuries. Both skeletons were the remains of men who were around 50 years old. Due to their location, the skeleton, designated as Individual 1, was suddenly crushed when a large piece of wall collapsed. The wall caused severe physical injuries and likely killed him instantly.

However, Person 2 may have been aware of the danger and tried to protect himself. The team found a round wooden object with faint traces of volcanic deposits. It may have been used as a protective shield.

According to the team, there were several clues that these individuals did not die from extreme heat or ash inhalation, including the fact that their remains lie on top of the pumice lapilli, not underneath it. This suggests that both survived the first phase of the eruption. The pair were eventually overwhelmed by the collapsing walls when the eruption temporarily stopped and before the pyroclastic flows arrived – the hot avalanches of volcanic ash, gases and debris that roll across the ground during an explosive eruption.

A damned fate

During the nearly 300 years of excavations at Pompeii, scientists have found evidence that a number of victims were not even able to be temporarily evacuated. Several remains found in the ash deposits suggest that some escaped into the open despite the hopeless situation. There are currently no reliable estimates of how many people died due to volcanic causes or earthquake damage.

(Related: Pompeii’s archaeological mysteries can be solved with a little help from chemistry.)

“New insights into the destruction of Pompeii bring us very close to the experiences of the people who lived here 2,000 years ago,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, in a statement. “The choices they made, as well as the dynamics of events that remain the focus of our research, decided life and death in the last hours of the city’s existence.”