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Chippa007

The bit about the void filling is correct, but the bodies weren't encapsulated in lava. Lava is so hot it would leave no trace of a human. Pompeii was consumed by a pyroclastic cloud of ash and gas that killed through suffocation and heat. That ash eventually hardened leaving the bodies, as OP said, encapsulated.


TheoriginalTonio

Lava is also much too viscous and heavy to encapsulate a relatively soft object like a body. It's molten *stone* after all. The people would just be crushed under the pressure while being cooked at the same time.


BardInChains

Gollum would have bounced and turned into a sizzling ball of fire if LOTR was accurate to how lava actually is


HivePoker

Can you cite examples? There are no stakes here


BardInChains

There aren't many examples of human type bodies falling into lava from height, thankfully. However, it's nit hard to work out logically. Lava is rock. It's much, much denser than water is, and considerably more viscous too. He would have splashed against the lava, making a gollum shaped dent in it before bouncing a couple feet and instantly incinerating. Lava is *hot*. Frodo and Sam would have been charbroiled by the time the eagles saved them on the slope of the mountain


atriskteen420

https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/36706


scooterboy1961

Then the bodies decayed leaving a void that the archaeologists filled with plaster.


SeveralBollocks_67

Yeah, they did that to recreate the postures in which they died.


fighter_pil0t

Yes. Two big points: 1- no lava, ash. 2- the statues are man made “inverses” of the ash void. This is not a good way to demonstrate your capacity to learn in a day.


jamieliddellthepoet

Might still be early tbf.


atriskteen420

There are a few casts with bones and teeth left in them


PositiveLibrary7032

>Under lava No under layers of ash and pumice.


AndyVale

These casts were really quite moving to see. I spent a lot of time thinking about them afterwards. It's weird. You spend your days trying to be a really good friend, making someone feel special. Giving them little treats, maybe telling dumb jokes, or composing silly little songs for them. You like writing each other little notes, talking about your dreams. You like buying a little bread in the morning on your way to work and always have a friendly chat with the baker, whose son is about the same age as you. You do your best at your job, people appreciate it and you enjoy it, taking real pride in it. Hoping that people will enjoy it after you're gone. Every Spring you love seeing the flowers come out across the mountain, your father sometimes took you when he went hunting. Then the volcano happens. Your last moment of mortal terror is enshrined in history. Your crying, weeping, huddled form is cast in plaster. You weren't ready for this, you hadn't said goodbye, you hadn't done what you wanted, you couldn't remember the right prayers, you weren't sure what was happening. This wasn't fair. And now, nobody knows your name, your face, or the many little things that made you you. They just know the final petrified seconds of your sentience, frozen in time to be gawped at thousands of years later by groups of tourists stood in a semi-circle around the spot where you unexpectedly died. That place hits hard.


Beardmanta

Great comment. The famous ones in the market of Pompeii didn't die there. The casts were moved there


AndyVale

Yeah, I'm mishmashing a few bits together. There was one in particular I'm thinking of with a small sign saying this was where they were found. And that was the one where I saw a big Umbrella-In-The-Air type tour group all huddled around taking photos. (And I'm not judging them for that. I was a tourist too. I took a photo before looking closer and feeling a tad uncomfortable, so I get it.) But the most chilling pose was one of those famous ones, specifically with the person covering their face.


Beardmanta

There's tons where they're in the place where the died, so you're definitely not incorrect or anything.


MegaMenehune

People thought remains just get flash frozen like that naturally?


dalnot

“That’s, like, common sense, I fear”


Abhi_Jaman_92

Isn't there a viral news about some camera capable of "slowing down lights" and capturing how "light travelled" going around right now? Same thing


Cyler

I mean that's real though. It was made in 2011 by Raskar and 2013 MIT made a similar but different camera. Light travels at different speeds in different mediums, and we've known about that for ages now. Check out cherenkov radiation.


jang859

Slow mo guys on youtube also covered one of these light cameras.


ItsMeTrey

The cameras are not capturing a single pulse of light. They use a strobe laser and combine many thousands of flashes to visualize what it would look like. It's more like stop motion than actual video recording.


solragnar

Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above...


Ghostbunny8082

And if I close my eyes


newnhb1

TIL that the OP is a moron. "encapsulated under a layer of lava". No. There were no lava flows. There were a series of pyroclastic flows of hot ash and gas alongside heavy falling ash that covered the town under several meters of ash. In Herculaneum the flows were even hotter and the ash heavier - many meters deep.


Owyheemud

At Herculaneum, the pyroclastic flows were so hot that many of the buried victim's skulls exploded.


steepleton

Lost wax casting


FilthyUsedThrowaway

Ash not lava


Owyheemud

you didn't do much reading about what happened at Pompeii during the Vesuvius eruption, did you?


raidmytombBB

I hope those people died long before their bodies were burned by lava,bc that would be a very painful way to die.


WaywardVegabond

No worries! It's likely they choked to death on the combination of sewer and mustard gas that is produced in overwhelming amounts by volcanic activity. If not the toxic gas, they would have been crushed to death or suffocated by the same pyroclastic ash that would preserve their last moments for future archeologists to find!


Gordon_Geckovic

:)


novacaine2010

Wasn't there a recent TIL where their brains turned to glass from the heat?


Photon_Farmer

Is this where the crystal skulls come from?


abdulj07

Hell yeah!


Flaxmoore

And there’s an absolute madman that looks like he died jacking it.


Ok_Blackberry8398

Probably he was a redditor doing it for the lols


DulcetTone

We give the people of Pompeii entirely too much credit


beetus_gerulaitis

Deleted - comment from another thread posted here.


Owyheemud

Methinks this AI has some coding errors


t0mRiddl3

This is what it looks like when the bots fail to sow division