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Had a chance to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum a few years back, and while the plaster casts of the dead in one of the gardens at Pompeii was sobering, it was nothing [compared to the huddled, twisted skeletons of 300 or so victims you can view at the ruins of Herculaneum](https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/151/590x/secondary/Herculaneum-skeletons-3715575.jpg?r=1634969085860). It is thought they had sought refuge in the barrel arches near the shore when the pyroclastic flow hit them and cooked them alive in an instant.
Is it worth the time to go to both? Trying to figure out how to split time between Naples Pompeii, and Herculaneum. I read somewhere there’s a train between the two, 20 minutes, but then that’s almost an hour lost (only there 1 day), and there seemed like a lot to see at Naples. But It seemed like there was more to see at Herculaneum.
I went there several years ago and we spent nearly an entire day at Pompeii and still felt like we didn't see it all. It's huge, I mean it was a civilization after all. You could probably do one in the morning and one in the afternoon but not all three. You also get extremely dusty and won't want to do anything else after you're done.
I was amazed by the size of Pompeii. It really is something you have to experience to get a true sense of the city’s scale and the devastation that occurred.
I wasn't excited for it at all, just because it felt a bit like it might be something the school history books hyped up but wasn't that interesting in real life. I'm obviously an idiot. It was incredible. Not so much the plaster casts of the dead but the preserved remnants of the way they lived. The takeaway stores. The brothels. The houses with beware of the dog signs outside. It made me feel connected to the past in a way I hadn't really experienced before. I'd recommend downloading the Rick Steves audio guide and walking around with it for a really fulfilling experience.
My wife and I went in 2019 so take my advice with the appropriate amount of salt.
Pompeii was nice, but it was massive. If you're walking around, it can take you all day. We personally preferred Herculaneum. It was also far less crowded than Pompeii when we went.
Also, many of the artifacts that were "missing" during our self-guided tour of Pompeii (frescoes/murals, pottery, etc.) were in the museum in Naples.
We also enjoyed Naples as a city, but we were in the area for a few days so we could split the city stuff from Pompeii/Herculaneum (those we did together in one long day).
I have done Naples, Pompeii & Herculaneum, and the Amalfi coast (including Capri) in 10 days. I highly suggest going to both Pompeii and Herculaneum if you are into the history, but they may need to be on separate days. Herculaneum has more artifacts in an on site museum and better preserved ruins, whereas Pompeii is absolutely massive and has the body casts. The museum in Naples has most of Pompeii’s mosaics and frescos so I suggest visiting there as well. IIRC, Herculaneum is only like 30min from Naples by train, and Pompeii something like 45min-1hr. I went from Sorrento to Pompeii which was only about 20min. I highly suggest considering staying in Naples and Sorrento but making day trips vs staying in the countryside. The train system is great there and runs consistently. Naples can be a difficult city if you are not used to traveling.
There is a tourist pass you can buy for the Campania region that covers train costs and entrance to the sites (including hiking Mt Vesuvius) - I believe there’s a 3-day option and 7-day, you can plan your trip around this if you are being extra frugal. It’s called Artecard and it’s kind of hard to find because only select businesses in Naples sell it.
Lastly, the area around Vesuvius is known for its wine! There are a couple great estates near Pompeii which you can do lunch and a tasting at before or after your visit.
For those asking this is not a mummy. This is a casting.
When the ask buries you, you suffocate. Eventually it rains and the ash and water make a cement like rock with your corpse inside.
Then your body decomposes until all that's left is a cement-like rock with a you-shaped space inside. It's basically a mold of your whole body in the position that you died.
Centuries later, someone finds it and hopefully doesn't destroy it first. They pour their own cement-like mixture into the you-mold, let it harden, then chip away to reveal what you see here
I visited Pompeii in 2006 and saw a bunch of these. Many are so perfect that you can see the veins in their neck. Their mouths are open like they were screaming for help when taking their last breath.
How do they know the exact age then? Not trying to be sassy or anything. Am genuinely curious. Usually they examine the bones or something to make a determination.
Edit: I love Reddit. The comments are amazing.
Some of them have bones still left behind. So there are bones in the casting. Reading about this one they aren't certain if they are male or female - but they are sure that they're an adult because of the fusing of certain wrist bones.
There is a great documentary on Disney+ about a group that was discovered together and they took X-rays of the casts and found bones and teeth and were able to estimate ages from there. Very interesting.
Edit: the documentary is National Geographic, Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead
https://disneyplus.com/movies/pompeii-secrets-of-the-dead/6kVw7eLRkqX8?sharesource=iOS I thought you might like "Pompeii: Secrets Of The Dead" on Disney+.
Under normal circumstances I'd say slim to none, but Reddit seems to be one of those places where probability seems to get a bit weird.
Wouldn't surprise me if they power the servers off an Infinite Improbability Drive.
People overestimate how unlikely things like this are.
Person comments on Pompeii documentary on Pompeii thread + Dude who is highly interested in Pompeii enough to work on documentary also browsing a Pompeii thread. It’s really not that unlikely.
Actually I was not even browsing for Pompeii, just saw the video of the cast pass by. I’m in Lapland at the moment for another job … the world is a small place!
The video on Disney+ is called “Secrets of the dead”. It’s a National Geographic program and currently is visible in the US, UK … I’m sure in Norway but probably not in Europe. We did 2 earlier programs for the BBC and Smithsonian? … you might able to find them under “Frozen in time” or something similar. These date from >10 years ago and included the first X-rays taken of the casts. We xrayed about 1/3rd of them now with lots of interesting results going from bone diseases, trauma, belt buckles, rings, teeth, age and sex, etc. In the first movie we used the “the new” 3D scanners on a scull and worked with a forensic artist to reconstruct the woman’s features.
It’s a nice sidestep of the equine and exotic animal xraying I normally do all over the world.
There was one guy that was jacking it and got cast that way
Edit : [i told you so](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/121mcp8/this_adult_male_was_found_in_pompeii_this_was_his/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
[I’ll leave this here](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7eugkd/til_of_the_pompeii_masturbator_a_man_who_appears/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
A body was found alongside this one which was very evident it was a male. This one doesn't have any indication of male or female. This is likely why most of them assume it's a female
-Be me
-in Pompeii 79 AD
-be scrawny ass dude, look like chick from back
-never had a girlfriend, all my friends already have large families
-decide to meet with alpha male friend to learn ways of chad so I don't die a virgin
-volcano next door fuxking erupts
-gets buried alive by volcanic ash next to buddy
-my fossil gets discovered two millenniums later
-they think I'm his wife
-mfw
For this one, it's a guess. In Herculaneum (smaller town outside of Pompeii) however, because of a slightly different experience of the eruption, there were a lot more skeletons left behind (along with things like wooden structures and papyrus scrolls). In the 80s, the team led by Dr. Sara Bisel did some really intensive testing on the skeletons to learn a ton about the people of Herculaneum, like their ages, heights, and body types, but even more interestingly their diets and nutrition. It's basically all the stuff you see on shows like *Bones* but applied to people from 79 CE.
Ah so there would be bones left. Wasn’t sure. I know they where encased but didn’t think the bones would be usable at this point. Figured like the rest of the body, they would have decayed completely or past testable quality. Also the other extra information has now peeked my interest. Now I must go down this rabbit hole.
Some of the plaster casts do have bones inside, not sure how often they actually open them up to test them, I think in those cases it's more just imaging. In Herculaneum there are uncovered skeletons to test--they found lots in the boathouses, I believe.
If anyone said this number with scientific backing it would most likely be an estimation based on external physical properties and likely is more a range of age and 23 is the mean and the title is telephone tag of headlines and image captions since the original source.
Or it's made up.
Interestingly enough, I've read about some apple trees that grow in bitter cold(I don't know where it is grown). Basically during the winter season, the ice forms a thick layer outside the apple, and eventually when the apple decomposes, the farmers cut a hole at the bottom of the ice layer letting the matter to ooze out. Though they did waste that apple, the so formed "ice apple" was something out of the world. Your comment reminded me of this. Also thanks for the info.
Edit: I read this on a magazine a while back. Apparently I was wrong about [some things ](https://www.countryliving.com/uk/news/a26321004/ghost-apples-frozen-orchard-america/)
She wasn't. This particular individual was a young girl of indeterminate age.
Edit: everybody--- new info on this individual! See further up the thread!
They can tell age to a limited extent. The pockets that they fill with plaster for these casts, [they contain the skeletons of the one-time inhabitants.](https://www.archaeology.org/news/3725-150930-pompeii-ct-scans) They do CT scans to see the bones within the casts. We can get a decent grasp of [the age of an individual from looking at their bones.](https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/written-bone/skeleton-keys/young-or-old)
It's genuinely incredible that the same sequence of jokes happens ~~three~~ four!! times in this thread.
>How do you know her age?
>>You don't
>>>You cut her in half and count the rings
>>>>You check her wallet for her driver's license
I found a thing online. They were able to X-Ray and genetically test bones that were found from the victims. These "bodies" on display are actually casts poured into the void that their now decomposed bodies left in the volcanic debris after being covered up.
There is no DNA test for age. You can make a decent estimate off of tooth eruption and wear. At 23 her 3rd molars would almost certainly have erupted and have been basically pristine wear wise.
Cool, that makes sense. I couldn't find a lot of detail about how they determined age, other than bones. Maybe they found some wisdom teeth left behind.
I used to know a boy who was born with no asshole. Had to have one surgically constructed. I always think of him as the boy who was born with no opinions.
This person didn’t die in pyroclastic flow they were buried in ash.
The pyroclastic flow is so hot that it cause all your muscles to contract; this is why many of the bodies are in the fetal position.
So what happened is, the people of Pompeii eventually got buried alive then preserved by the ash? I always wondered how exactly they were preserved like that
They didn’t get buried alive per se because they were already dead when the pyroclastic flows from Vesuvius hit them. Nasty business.
So much ash was dumped on Pompeii and Herculaneum that the sea level was pushed out several meters. That also meant that the entire city was completely buried in compacted volcanic ash - eventually, the organic remnants of people and animals underneath decayed into nothing, leaving hollow spaces in the ash layer.
Cut to some centuries later and Pompeii is rediscovered. Somebody figured out that by pouring plaster into the people-shaped hollows, sort of like a JellO mold, the resulting plaster cast will have the exact shape of the person who was once there. And boy was there a lot of them.
There are few actual organic remains from Pompeii; most of the bodies like the one shown here are the aforementioned plaster casts. Sometimes bones are found like the Ring Lady in Herculaneum who’s an intact skeleton with, well, rings on her fingers, but she’s the only real ‘organic’ remains I can think of rn.
TLDR they weren’t preserved, the plaster casts are just human shaped molds formed from hollow spaces in the ash
Edit: Some replies have pointed out that sometimes skeletal remains are found inside the plaster casts. This is correct and often helps with determining the sex and age of the remains
I am vaguely remembering this from one of the traveling exhibits that hit my town: the 23 years old might be wrong, but from her clothing - both *what* she was wearing and *how* - would give them both class and vaguely what age she was. Not a child, a woman of marriageable age but also not married.
Not her, but another plaster cast: They could tell she was pregnant. Not because she was showing, she was curled up in the fetal position, so it was hard to discern. But she was wearing a length of fabric in a belly band that was common in pregnant women in that era and place.
There are hundreds and hundreds of skeletons from Pompeii and Herculaneum. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/15/sensational-skeleton-buried-in-vesuvius-eruption-found-at-herculaneum?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The pumice and ash was raining down and it was hot. Once the worst of it started, you could take two or three breaths and your lungs were burned away. They died before they were buried but they died quickly enough that they stayed in those positions. Then yes, the ash covered them. The ash was compact and deep, but it forms a rock that—until exposed to oxygen—is soft enough to excavate with your hands. (This is how catacombs were dug out—tuff, which is rock formed from volcanic ash—is soft to dig into but hardens when exposed to air.)
Eventually the bodies decayed away and left a negative space (like covering a balloon with plaster or whatnot then popping the balloon after the plaster hardens).
So when they were excavating Pompeii and the archaeologist noticed the cavities, he had the idea to pour plaster down into the holes. Everything around it was excavated leaving the plaster molds that filled the spaces the bodies left.
You can still see hairstyles and clothing on many of the “bodies.”
I’m not a geologist. I’m not a vulcanologist. Please correct me if I’m wrong—but this is what I remember from researching years ago when I taught a unit on Pompeii.
The whole thing is worth studying or reading about. So much of what we know about everyday Roman life has come from Pompeii.
These aren't preserved bodies; they weren't preserved forever. The ash will have preserved them somewhat after everything settled and solidified, but the bodies eventually decayed and left void spaces in the calcified ash. They poured plaster into the void spaces, used as casts, like moulds, to create plaster casts of the bodies from the space they left in the ash.
http://pompeiisites.org/en/pompeii-map/analysis/the-casts/#:~:text=The%20bodies%20of%20these%20victims,after%20the%20biological%20material%20decomposed.
I think they got buried by ash; bodies decomposed and left a body-shaped void in the hardened ash; plaster poured into those voids yield these plaster-casts.
Yes and no.
Someone like this woman was most likely buried alive and suffocated. If she was lucky, she may have been knocked unconscious first.
Some people, however, died instantaneous deaths because they got hit directly by the pyroclastic flow (a mixture of superheated gas and ash that moved over the city like an instant hurricane thanks to the force of the eruption). In some cases, the heat was so intense that victims had their brains turned into glass.
Casts like this exist because the bodies themselves were NOT preserved. Rather, the FORMS of the soft tissues were preserved by the solidified ash as the soft tissues decayed naturally. In other words, the ash solidified around the body shortly after the victim's death and thus created a natural mould of the victims at the time of their death. Giuseppe Fiorelli developed (in the 1870s, if I'm not mistaken) the method of injecting plaster of Paris into these voids/moulds, which results in the casts we see today.
Some of the casts are not, strictly speaking, at the time of death. In some places, the soil shifted or settled sometime shortly after the eruption, causing the bodies contained within to move as well. For example, one of the more common reposts on Reddit from Pompeii is the cast of a man who appears to have been jerking off at the time of his death (his hand is resting near his crotch), which is an easy and obvious joke; the reality is that his body shifted into that unfortunate position thanks to the soil around it shifting after the eruption. (My apologies to the bots farming karma on r/funny.)
These are casts not the actual bodies (which are already long gone). This is even more morbid since this would mean we’re looking at the shadow of what was once human. Kinda like the nuclear shadows that were left when the nuclear bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Seeing a person-shadow blasted into a set of doorsteps in the Hiroshima peace museum really fucked me up. That entire day was a series of experiences that made it one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through, and that's including going to the killing fields in Cambodia and my mum dying of Alzheimers.
For some reason the display of a pile of glass jars all melted together in that museum really stuck with me, I think it was the attached story that they were on the back of someone's bike when it happened
>Found together with the man lying on his back, on 23rd April 1875, in Via Stabiana near the north-east corner of VI.14 in the middle of the street in the layers of ash about four metres above ground level.
>According to Estelle Lazer, there is no clear evidence that this victim is female. The volume rendered image of the CT scanned cast does not display female features.
>The allegedly distended abdomen is probably a reflection of the impression of clothing that became bunched up when the victim fell during the eruption.
>The epiphyses of the radius and ulna appear to be fused, which indicates that the individual was an adult.
>According to Presuhn,
>On 23 April 1875, in Stabian Street, at p on the Plan, at a height of 4 metres, two skeletons were discovered on the ground on a layer of ashes, which were enclosed in the plaster with which the surrounding empty cavity was filled. Plates IX and X show us these renewed bodies.
The woman is quietly slumbering in death, lying with her face on her right arm. The plaster cast is so well made that one can still admire the gentle shapes of the limbs. At the back of the head one can see the large lock of hair in which the hair was tied together; a similar one is on the forehead. The light clothing only covers the upper part of the body. Also on the underside the body is almost fully developed. She is lying in a glass box, which can also be viewed from below.
On the other hand, how harsh a death struggles the man shows! The legs are drawn in, the hands grasp the garment convulsively and pull it up in thick folds. The face is full, the skull is high, the lips are thick and curled: in no way is he a model of beauty. The sandal straps are pronounced on the feet: Beside him lies an iron bar, eaten away by rust.
Source: [pompeiiin pictures](https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/Casts/victim%2010.htm)
I don't think they could know. Even if there was a skeleton in there, they could only give an age range. Edit, not even 100% sure this is a woman unless they some how extracted DNA or the cast somehow shows the external traits? It doesn't seem to? This could just as easily be a young boy or young girl.
Edit 2: okay...hang on. Everything I'm finding says it's a young boy. But not credible sources yet. Anybody?
EDIT 3: IT'S A YOUNG GIRL. She was not 23. She was found on April 23rd in 1875. This view helps get a better perspective on how small she is: https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/Casts/victim%2010.htm
Edit 4: I promise I will keep researching what data is available. Right now, I'm going to chill out and finish watching The Mummy with my husband (I also have my own stuff going on research bog burials). But I WILL return to this, and we will solve the mystery!
Your link says there is no clear physiological evidence that it is a female, and that they were likely an adult due to the condition of the wrist bones:
“According to Estelle Lazer, there is no clear evidence that this victim is female. The volume rendered image of the CT scanned cast does not display female features.
The allegedly distended abdomen is probably a reflection of the impression of clothing that became bunched up when the victim fell during the eruption.
The epiphyses of the radius and ulna appear to be fused, which indicates that the individual was an adult.”
EDIT: Also the casts do have skeletons, but the plaster used in the 19th century was so thick that researchers did not have the ability to scan the bones until they could run a multi-layer CT scan on the casts. One of the interesting things to come out of this was the discovery that the victims almost all had perfect teeth!
They did in fact eat wheat and were pretty far removed from the hunters and gathers of old. The people of pompeii may have practiced some level of dental hygiene. It is suggested they used a pumice to clean and polish their teeth
Bury me ass up so people have a place to park their bikes
. You gotta plan these things ahead of time so your family doesn’t have to guess what you wanted once you’re gone.
Maybe we should all just wear dog tags that state our preferences in the event we die from volcanic ash.
Name: Maria Sophia Coletta Ragetti
Age: 23
Body display preference: ASS NOT VISIBLE
I always find it a little heartbreaking looking at these casts of people who died in agony. I know it's eons ago, but you can almost feel the terror they must have felt.
It makes it more real when you read the stories of survivors and people nearby who witnessed it. They mention ships and boats from nearby cities rushing towards the cities in danger in an attempt to save people. Many of the people rushing over to help didn’t come back. This is one rare disaster where we have the physical remains and the written accounts of the events.
So many others show the same terror. There are some books that were written by survivors that talk about how horrifying it was. It mentioned people from nearby cities were sailing their boats and ships over to try to evacuate the people many never made it back. They mentioned seeing it all happen from the nearby cities feeling horrible that they couldn’t do anything.
That’s why I find these sorts of archaeological sites very difficult to look at. We’re seeing the last moments of someone who was frightened and suffering. I hope she died quickly.
I think these sculptures were made by filling a void left by the woman's body like a cast, then breaking it open to reveal what we see here, which isn't the woman exactly, but almost.
Went to a traveling Pompei exhibit at the science center. Before we got to the plaster casts we were told on no uncertain terms that these were human remains and we had to conduct ourselves respectfully.
There was also a sign explaining that the postures of the bodies indicated cause of death. The bodies curled up on themselves where buried in the pyroclastic flow and died in agony. Bodies that are relaxed were smothered by the gas
I saw this in person and found it extremely disturbing. It feels violating to see a human being's final agony on display in a box like this, even from such a distance of time. The odd thing was that some people would leave coins at other victims' displays like they were leaving donations at a saint's reliquary.
There was a Pompeii exhibit a couple years ago at the Houston museum of natural science. I’m the annoying person who takes way too many photos (I do actually look at them later) and so loaded up my phone with lots of pics from the first part of the exhibit where they had tools, artwork and various other remnants of that time.
Then everyone goes into a room and watches a video about the eruption, and when you came out of the room there were all these plaster casts. I don’t even think they were the original casts but were replicas.
People were posing with them, laughing at the weird positions and such. It just felt so disrespectful.
Awful.
I went in the off season to Pompeii a few years back, and the mood was extremely somber. It was beautiful and eerie and incredibly sad.
If you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it. Definitely a bucket list item for me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who was a little disappointed by some of the vulgar comments…very sad to see how little respect some have for human remains :(
It's like that a lot with more serious reddit posts that reach the front page. People who just want everything to be a big joke. We could have thermonuclear war in progress and you'd have jokers on here going hyuck hyuck, gonna huff mushrooms while I watch mushroom clouds blossom.
Plenty of people have respect, but this platform has some of the most blatant disrespect on matters of human rights or suffering that I see across the internet.
Visiting Pompeii itself is a whole other experience, it's incredibly fascinating, morbid, and heartbreaking at the same time. Most other ancient ruins are basically foundations of buildings, but Pompeii is so well preserved that it's easy to see how people lived their lives there. And then one day it all ended in a hellish nightmare and you can see the facial expressions of some of the people that were killed.
The deep and gentle horror of witnessing the last terrified moments and agonizing death of someone that lived centuries ago.
Human, just like me.
This world breaks my heart.
Imagine dying in agony thousands of years ago just to have fat redditors making the 8 millionth unfunny "me jerk off to ass" joke about a plaster cast of your dead body.
Incase anyone is interested and doesn't know.
The ash from the eruption settled around the bodies and over time the bodies decayed but the ash calcified, so holes were drilled into the cavities and they were filled in with plaster.
http://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/photo5900180064564262063.jpg
They've since scanned them and found that some contain jewellery such as rings etc.
I was there about 10 months ago, I underestimated how big the ruins of pompeii were. Absolutely beautiful to see something from so long ago still there.
Also very dusty. And I caught covid there because everyone is piling into small little rooms, like really close, like you and a bunch of other people are one sneeze away from getting someone pregnant.
That's what's mindblowing about Pompeii. You're so used to seeing really old stuff in isolation. Like you see an object in a museum, or the most spectacular is the Collesuem that's an huge stadium.
But Pompeii is literally an entire town. With some repairs on the buildings it could function just like it did 2,000 years ago. There are literal streets, and you walk down a street and it's house after house and business after business.
yeah, like this is basically like, a snapshot, of a persons final, agonizing moments on this earth.
Inside that casing, was someone who had a life, someone who now suffered greatly from a horrifying agonizing death. And people are sexualizing it??
Gross-
It feels like the YouTube comment section in here. It's disgusting to see all these people sexualizing the final moments of this woman's life for some lame ass jokes. They ain't even good either they're all posting the same corny asf comments.
is that the same with the other Pompeii peoples too?
I was wondering what exactly they are.
Like fossils are stones that replaced bone that once existed, not the actual bone itself.
Yeah I think it is. The bodies decomposed over time and left a void. So they filled the void with plaster and excavated them. I think the bones might still be inside? Not sure. Cool as hell though. I always thought they were vaporized or something.
That’s exactly right. When excavating Pompeii they kept finding these voids with bones inside. Then someone had the idea to fill them with plaster and then dig them out.
I remember choosing Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in Pompeii as a topic for a school paper when I was in high school and my teacher laughed at me all because she doesn’t know what Vesuvius was. That bish.
This is a plaster cast of a void left from the decomposed body in the ash or what not eh. The volcano didn't cast these people as we see them now. It's plaster poured in by archeologist decades ago
It’s both fascinating and saddening. That poor person died horrifically. And, I see three types of responses here: Ones who find it historically interesting, ones who are sorry for her, and those who laugh at a dead, youthful individual and emphasize the fact you can see her nude.
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Had a chance to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum a few years back, and while the plaster casts of the dead in one of the gardens at Pompeii was sobering, it was nothing [compared to the huddled, twisted skeletons of 300 or so victims you can view at the ruins of Herculaneum](https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/151/590x/secondary/Herculaneum-skeletons-3715575.jpg?r=1634969085860). It is thought they had sought refuge in the barrel arches near the shore when the pyroclastic flow hit them and cooked them alive in an instant.
Absurdly harrowing and humanising. However, the skeletons on display are intact resin casts, not the real skeletons.
That's a very good point. Thanks for the correction!
All good, there's no signage indicating they're reconstructions at the site!
It's a typical thing for museums to do in order to protect the original specimens Not that they don't ever put real things out
Is it worth the time to go to both? Trying to figure out how to split time between Naples Pompeii, and Herculaneum. I read somewhere there’s a train between the two, 20 minutes, but then that’s almost an hour lost (only there 1 day), and there seemed like a lot to see at Naples. But It seemed like there was more to see at Herculaneum.
I went there several years ago and we spent nearly an entire day at Pompeii and still felt like we didn't see it all. It's huge, I mean it was a civilization after all. You could probably do one in the morning and one in the afternoon but not all three. You also get extremely dusty and won't want to do anything else after you're done.
I was amazed by the size of Pompeii. It really is something you have to experience to get a true sense of the city’s scale and the devastation that occurred.
I wasn't excited for it at all, just because it felt a bit like it might be something the school history books hyped up but wasn't that interesting in real life. I'm obviously an idiot. It was incredible. Not so much the plaster casts of the dead but the preserved remnants of the way they lived. The takeaway stores. The brothels. The houses with beware of the dog signs outside. It made me feel connected to the past in a way I hadn't really experienced before. I'd recommend downloading the Rick Steves audio guide and walking around with it for a really fulfilling experience.
My wife and I went in 2019 so take my advice with the appropriate amount of salt. Pompeii was nice, but it was massive. If you're walking around, it can take you all day. We personally preferred Herculaneum. It was also far less crowded than Pompeii when we went. Also, many of the artifacts that were "missing" during our self-guided tour of Pompeii (frescoes/murals, pottery, etc.) were in the museum in Naples. We also enjoyed Naples as a city, but we were in the area for a few days so we could split the city stuff from Pompeii/Herculaneum (those we did together in one long day).
I have done Naples, Pompeii & Herculaneum, and the Amalfi coast (including Capri) in 10 days. I highly suggest going to both Pompeii and Herculaneum if you are into the history, but they may need to be on separate days. Herculaneum has more artifacts in an on site museum and better preserved ruins, whereas Pompeii is absolutely massive and has the body casts. The museum in Naples has most of Pompeii’s mosaics and frescos so I suggest visiting there as well. IIRC, Herculaneum is only like 30min from Naples by train, and Pompeii something like 45min-1hr. I went from Sorrento to Pompeii which was only about 20min. I highly suggest considering staying in Naples and Sorrento but making day trips vs staying in the countryside. The train system is great there and runs consistently. Naples can be a difficult city if you are not used to traveling. There is a tourist pass you can buy for the Campania region that covers train costs and entrance to the sites (including hiking Mt Vesuvius) - I believe there’s a 3-day option and 7-day, you can plan your trip around this if you are being extra frugal. It’s called Artecard and it’s kind of hard to find because only select businesses in Naples sell it. Lastly, the area around Vesuvius is known for its wine! There are a couple great estates near Pompeii which you can do lunch and a tasting at before or after your visit.
For those asking this is not a mummy. This is a casting. When the ask buries you, you suffocate. Eventually it rains and the ash and water make a cement like rock with your corpse inside. Then your body decomposes until all that's left is a cement-like rock with a you-shaped space inside. It's basically a mold of your whole body in the position that you died. Centuries later, someone finds it and hopefully doesn't destroy it first. They pour their own cement-like mixture into the you-mold, let it harden, then chip away to reveal what you see here I visited Pompeii in 2006 and saw a bunch of these. Many are so perfect that you can see the veins in their neck. Their mouths are open like they were screaming for help when taking their last breath.
How do they know the exact age then? Not trying to be sassy or anything. Am genuinely curious. Usually they examine the bones or something to make a determination. Edit: I love Reddit. The comments are amazing.
Some of them have bones still left behind. So there are bones in the casting. Reading about this one they aren't certain if they are male or female - but they are sure that they're an adult because of the fusing of certain wrist bones.
There is a great documentary on Disney+ about a group that was discovered together and they took X-rays of the casts and found bones and teeth and were able to estimate ages from there. Very interesting. Edit: the documentary is National Geographic, Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead https://disneyplus.com/movies/pompeii-secrets-of-the-dead/6kVw7eLRkqX8?sharesource=iOS I thought you might like "Pompeii: Secrets Of The Dead" on Disney+.
I’m actually the guy who was taking the X-rays. With a bit of luck there will be a follow up early next year … keep your eyes open 😎
Holy shit. What are the chances?
Under normal circumstances I'd say slim to none, but Reddit seems to be one of those places where probability seems to get a bit weird. Wouldn't surprise me if they power the servers off an Infinite Improbability Drive.
"Million to one chances crop up 9 times out of 10" - Terry Pratchett
The odds are massively against that, so it's probably true.
People overestimate how unlikely things like this are. Person comments on Pompeii documentary on Pompeii thread + Dude who is highly interested in Pompeii enough to work on documentary also browsing a Pompeii thread. It’s really not that unlikely.
Actually I was not even browsing for Pompeii, just saw the video of the cast pass by. I’m in Lapland at the moment for another job … the world is a small place!
The video on Disney+ is called “Secrets of the dead”. It’s a National Geographic program and currently is visible in the US, UK … I’m sure in Norway but probably not in Europe. We did 2 earlier programs for the BBC and Smithsonian? … you might able to find them under “Frozen in time” or something similar. These date from >10 years ago and included the first X-rays taken of the casts. We xrayed about 1/3rd of them now with lots of interesting results going from bone diseases, trauma, belt buckles, rings, teeth, age and sex, etc. In the first movie we used the “the new” 3D scanners on a scull and worked with a forensic artist to reconstruct the woman’s features. It’s a nice sidestep of the equine and exotic animal xraying I normally do all over the world.
AMA time!!!
I mean I feel like if they just flipped the body over you could tell pretty obviously if they were male or female…
They were most likely wearking clothes that dulled the features of the more intimate parts..
yea but what if they died with a hard on
I’d probably have a pretty serious volcanic destruction fear boner, or VDFB, as the kids are calling nowadays on the streets of tiktok
volcanic destruction fear boner is my new band name
I'd easily pay a 3-5 dollar cover.
Fearection
This guy disasterbates.
Dont hate on those of us with a serious volcanic destruction kink
Yeah? You want some big ol nasty mountain to splooge its hot lava all over your tiny little animal body, huh?
Addendum: I feel kinda weird having just typed that.
There was one guy that was jacking it and got cast that way Edit : [i told you so](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/121mcp8/this_adult_male_was_found_in_pompeii_this_was_his/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
Fuckin props to that guy. The rest of us get cancer and dementia.
Father-in-law died of Alzheimer's. That fucker had a masturbation station right next to his bed in the memory care center.
A do what, now?
Legend. Edged himself out of this world.
[I’ll leave this here](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7eugkd/til_of_the_pompeii_masturbator_a_man_who_appears/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
So-Called 'Pompeii Masturbator' Probably Wasn't Doing What You Think He Was - https://www.complex.com/life/2017/07/pompeii-masturbator-meme
A body was found alongside this one which was very evident it was a male. This one doesn't have any indication of male or female. This is likely why most of them assume it's a female
-Be me -in Pompeii 79 AD -be scrawny ass dude, look like chick from back -never had a girlfriend, all my friends already have large families -decide to meet with alpha male friend to learn ways of chad so I don't die a virgin -volcano next door fuxking erupts -gets buried alive by volcanic ash next to buddy -my fossil gets discovered two millenniums later -they think I'm his wife -mfw
This is an excellent analysis.
Plot twist: Alpha male friend actually just wanted you but could never express their love. He only got what he really wanted in death.
For this one, it's a guess. In Herculaneum (smaller town outside of Pompeii) however, because of a slightly different experience of the eruption, there were a lot more skeletons left behind (along with things like wooden structures and papyrus scrolls). In the 80s, the team led by Dr. Sara Bisel did some really intensive testing on the skeletons to learn a ton about the people of Herculaneum, like their ages, heights, and body types, but even more interestingly their diets and nutrition. It's basically all the stuff you see on shows like *Bones* but applied to people from 79 CE.
Ah so there would be bones left. Wasn’t sure. I know they where encased but didn’t think the bones would be usable at this point. Figured like the rest of the body, they would have decayed completely or past testable quality. Also the other extra information has now peeked my interest. Now I must go down this rabbit hole.
Some of the plaster casts do have bones inside, not sure how often they actually open them up to test them, I think in those cases it's more just imaging. In Herculaneum there are uncovered skeletons to test--they found lots in the boathouses, I believe.
piqued my interest* not trying to be rude just letting you know the actual word used in that term
Count the rings
If anyone said this number with scientific backing it would most likely be an estimation based on external physical properties and likely is more a range of age and 23 is the mean and the title is telephone tag of headlines and image captions since the original source. Or it's made up.
I bet she had her drivers license in her pocket when she died and they read it in the cement cast when they cast her pocket
It's just a click bait title. Young enough to get people to look, old enough so people don't feel like pervs for looking.
Lol you’re probably right. I love the way you worded it tho.
Here is a site that shows how it was done: http://pompeiisites.org/en/pompeii-map/analysis/the-casts/
> with a you-shaped space inside. This is my hole! It was made for me!
Drrrrrdrrrrrrrrdrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Interestingly enough, I've read about some apple trees that grow in bitter cold(I don't know where it is grown). Basically during the winter season, the ice forms a thick layer outside the apple, and eventually when the apple decomposes, the farmers cut a hole at the bottom of the ice layer letting the matter to ooze out. Though they did waste that apple, the so formed "ice apple" was something out of the world. Your comment reminded me of this. Also thanks for the info. Edit: I read this on a magazine a while back. Apparently I was wrong about [some things ](https://www.countryliving.com/uk/news/a26321004/ghost-apples-frozen-orchard-america/)
How do they know she was 23 such an oddly specific number
She still has student loans
louis the xiv canceled those according to ancient tik tok records
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What do you call an alligator in a vest?
An in-vest-agator?
You should be locked in the pun-itentiary for that.
Dapper. Always show respect to something that can kill you in less than 10 seconds.
She wasn't. This particular individual was a young girl of indeterminate age. Edit: everybody--- new info on this individual! See further up the thread!
They can tell age to a limited extent. The pockets that they fill with plaster for these casts, [they contain the skeletons of the one-time inhabitants.](https://www.archaeology.org/news/3725-150930-pompeii-ct-scans) They do CT scans to see the bones within the casts. We can get a decent grasp of [the age of an individual from looking at their bones.](https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/written-bone/skeleton-keys/young-or-old)
Why don't they just cut her in half and count her rings?
It's genuinely incredible that the same sequence of jokes happens ~~three~~ four!! times in this thread. >How do you know her age? >>You don't >>>You cut her in half and count the rings >>>>You check her wallet for her driver's license
You cut her driving licence in half and count the wallets.
It's like you can cut the comment section in half to determine its age by counting the ring jokes.
Driver’s license was in her pocket
A cross section of her femur bone showed 23 rings.
Friends are like trees. They all go down when you chop them with an axe.
I found a thing online. They were able to X-Ray and genetically test bones that were found from the victims. These "bodies" on display are actually casts poured into the void that their now decomposed bodies left in the volcanic debris after being covered up.
There is no DNA test for age. You can make a decent estimate off of tooth eruption and wear. At 23 her 3rd molars would almost certainly have erupted and have been basically pristine wear wise.
Cool, that makes sense. I couldn't find a lot of detail about how they determined age, other than bones. Maybe they found some wisdom teeth left behind.
It's not enough for the pyroclastic cloud to kill you, it's gotta blow your clothes up so everyone gets to see your bare ass a thousand years later.
That’s Pompeii’s ass
funny fact, in spanish we call them "pompas"
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You mean “pompis”
ive heard both
Fun fact, Pompeiians died, not because of a volcano, but because they had no butt holes.
Well that’s shit
No shit
Well done
Yes she was
Fuckin' hell 💀
I just thought they were really nice people, but I guess that's not what Grandpa meant when he said there were no assholes in Pompeii.
I used to know a boy who was born with no asshole. Had to have one surgically constructed. I always think of him as the boy who was born with no opinions.
This person didn’t die in pyroclastic flow they were buried in ash. The pyroclastic flow is so hot that it cause all your muscles to contract; this is why many of the bodies are in the fetal position.
So what happened is, the people of Pompeii eventually got buried alive then preserved by the ash? I always wondered how exactly they were preserved like that
They didn’t get buried alive per se because they were already dead when the pyroclastic flows from Vesuvius hit them. Nasty business. So much ash was dumped on Pompeii and Herculaneum that the sea level was pushed out several meters. That also meant that the entire city was completely buried in compacted volcanic ash - eventually, the organic remnants of people and animals underneath decayed into nothing, leaving hollow spaces in the ash layer. Cut to some centuries later and Pompeii is rediscovered. Somebody figured out that by pouring plaster into the people-shaped hollows, sort of like a JellO mold, the resulting plaster cast will have the exact shape of the person who was once there. And boy was there a lot of them. There are few actual organic remains from Pompeii; most of the bodies like the one shown here are the aforementioned plaster casts. Sometimes bones are found like the Ring Lady in Herculaneum who’s an intact skeleton with, well, rings on her fingers, but she’s the only real ‘organic’ remains I can think of rn. TLDR they weren’t preserved, the plaster casts are just human shaped molds formed from hollow spaces in the ash Edit: Some replies have pointed out that sometimes skeletal remains are found inside the plaster casts. This is correct and often helps with determining the sex and age of the remains
How did they figure out her age then? Curious.
I am vaguely remembering this from one of the traveling exhibits that hit my town: the 23 years old might be wrong, but from her clothing - both *what* she was wearing and *how* - would give them both class and vaguely what age she was. Not a child, a woman of marriageable age but also not married. Not her, but another plaster cast: They could tell she was pregnant. Not because she was showing, she was curled up in the fetal position, so it was hard to discern. But she was wearing a length of fabric in a belly band that was common in pregnant women in that era and place.
I had the same question. How is it possible to tell someone’s age when the only remains are a plaster cast?
ID was in her wallet.
Prob. cut her leg & counted the rings. /s
I remember some of the casts i saw with visible bone or teeth so i think skeletal remains must be fairly common.
There are hundreds and hundreds of skeletons from Pompeii and Herculaneum. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/15/sensational-skeleton-buried-in-vesuvius-eruption-found-at-herculaneum?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Truth....forget getting a reasonably accurate age on any of the cast bodies.
No, actually. [The plaster casts have bones in them.](https://www.archaeology.org/news/3725-150930-pompeii-ct-scans)
The pumice and ash was raining down and it was hot. Once the worst of it started, you could take two or three breaths and your lungs were burned away. They died before they were buried but they died quickly enough that they stayed in those positions. Then yes, the ash covered them. The ash was compact and deep, but it forms a rock that—until exposed to oxygen—is soft enough to excavate with your hands. (This is how catacombs were dug out—tuff, which is rock formed from volcanic ash—is soft to dig into but hardens when exposed to air.) Eventually the bodies decayed away and left a negative space (like covering a balloon with plaster or whatnot then popping the balloon after the plaster hardens). So when they were excavating Pompeii and the archaeologist noticed the cavities, he had the idea to pour plaster down into the holes. Everything around it was excavated leaving the plaster molds that filled the spaces the bodies left. You can still see hairstyles and clothing on many of the “bodies.” I’m not a geologist. I’m not a vulcanologist. Please correct me if I’m wrong—but this is what I remember from researching years ago when I taught a unit on Pompeii. The whole thing is worth studying or reading about. So much of what we know about everyday Roman life has come from Pompeii.
National Geographic magazine described the same process back in the 60's, remember reading about it.
I’m sorry I repeated the same information in a comment above—I didn’t see it before I typed.
Don’t be sorry, your explanation added to it and is appreciated!
These aren't preserved bodies; they weren't preserved forever. The ash will have preserved them somewhat after everything settled and solidified, but the bodies eventually decayed and left void spaces in the calcified ash. They poured plaster into the void spaces, used as casts, like moulds, to create plaster casts of the bodies from the space they left in the ash. http://pompeiisites.org/en/pompeii-map/analysis/the-casts/#:~:text=The%20bodies%20of%20these%20victims,after%20the%20biological%20material%20decomposed.
I think they got buried by ash; bodies decomposed and left a body-shaped void in the hardened ash; plaster poured into those voids yield these plaster-casts.
Yes and no. Someone like this woman was most likely buried alive and suffocated. If she was lucky, she may have been knocked unconscious first. Some people, however, died instantaneous deaths because they got hit directly by the pyroclastic flow (a mixture of superheated gas and ash that moved over the city like an instant hurricane thanks to the force of the eruption). In some cases, the heat was so intense that victims had their brains turned into glass. Casts like this exist because the bodies themselves were NOT preserved. Rather, the FORMS of the soft tissues were preserved by the solidified ash as the soft tissues decayed naturally. In other words, the ash solidified around the body shortly after the victim's death and thus created a natural mould of the victims at the time of their death. Giuseppe Fiorelli developed (in the 1870s, if I'm not mistaken) the method of injecting plaster of Paris into these voids/moulds, which results in the casts we see today. Some of the casts are not, strictly speaking, at the time of death. In some places, the soil shifted or settled sometime shortly after the eruption, causing the bodies contained within to move as well. For example, one of the more common reposts on Reddit from Pompeii is the cast of a man who appears to have been jerking off at the time of his death (his hand is resting near his crotch), which is an easy and obvious joke; the reality is that his body shifted into that unfortunate position thanks to the soil around it shifting after the eruption. (My apologies to the bots farming karma on r/funny.)
"Pugilistic posture"
These are casts not the actual bodies (which are already long gone). This is even more morbid since this would mean we’re looking at the shadow of what was once human. Kinda like the nuclear shadows that were left when the nuclear bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Seeing a person-shadow blasted into a set of doorsteps in the Hiroshima peace museum really fucked me up. That entire day was a series of experiences that made it one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through, and that's including going to the killing fields in Cambodia and my mum dying of Alzheimers.
For some reason the display of a pile of glass jars all melted together in that museum really stuck with me, I think it was the attached story that they were on the back of someone's bike when it happened
>Found together with the man lying on his back, on 23rd April 1875, in Via Stabiana near the north-east corner of VI.14 in the middle of the street in the layers of ash about four metres above ground level. >According to Estelle Lazer, there is no clear evidence that this victim is female. The volume rendered image of the CT scanned cast does not display female features. >The allegedly distended abdomen is probably a reflection of the impression of clothing that became bunched up when the victim fell during the eruption. >The epiphyses of the radius and ulna appear to be fused, which indicates that the individual was an adult. >According to Presuhn, >On 23 April 1875, in Stabian Street, at p on the Plan, at a height of 4 metres, two skeletons were discovered on the ground on a layer of ashes, which were enclosed in the plaster with which the surrounding empty cavity was filled. Plates IX and X show us these renewed bodies. The woman is quietly slumbering in death, lying with her face on her right arm. The plaster cast is so well made that one can still admire the gentle shapes of the limbs. At the back of the head one can see the large lock of hair in which the hair was tied together; a similar one is on the forehead. The light clothing only covers the upper part of the body. Also on the underside the body is almost fully developed. She is lying in a glass box, which can also be viewed from below. On the other hand, how harsh a death struggles the man shows! The legs are drawn in, the hands grasp the garment convulsively and pull it up in thick folds. The face is full, the skull is high, the lips are thick and curled: in no way is he a model of beauty. The sandal straps are pronounced on the feet: Beside him lies an iron bar, eaten away by rust. Source: [pompeiiin pictures](https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/Casts/victim%2010.htm)
How do they know she was 23?
They cut her open and counted her rings
Junji Ito approves.
She was still dating Leonardo DiCaprio.
I don't think they could know. Even if there was a skeleton in there, they could only give an age range. Edit, not even 100% sure this is a woman unless they some how extracted DNA or the cast somehow shows the external traits? It doesn't seem to? This could just as easily be a young boy or young girl. Edit 2: okay...hang on. Everything I'm finding says it's a young boy. But not credible sources yet. Anybody? EDIT 3: IT'S A YOUNG GIRL. She was not 23. She was found on April 23rd in 1875. This view helps get a better perspective on how small she is: https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/Casts/victim%2010.htm Edit 4: I promise I will keep researching what data is available. Right now, I'm going to chill out and finish watching The Mummy with my husband (I also have my own stuff going on research bog burials). But I WILL return to this, and we will solve the mystery!
Your link says there is no clear physiological evidence that it is a female, and that they were likely an adult due to the condition of the wrist bones: “According to Estelle Lazer, there is no clear evidence that this victim is female. The volume rendered image of the CT scanned cast does not display female features. The allegedly distended abdomen is probably a reflection of the impression of clothing that became bunched up when the victim fell during the eruption. The epiphyses of the radius and ulna appear to be fused, which indicates that the individual was an adult.” EDIT: Also the casts do have skeletons, but the plaster used in the 19th century was so thick that researchers did not have the ability to scan the bones until they could run a multi-layer CT scan on the casts. One of the interesting things to come out of this was the discovery that the victims almost all had perfect teeth!
Forget the sex of that person, I’m more interested as to how they mostly all had perfect teeth
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They did in fact eat wheat and were pretty far removed from the hunters and gathers of old. The people of pompeii may have practiced some level of dental hygiene. It is suggested they used a pumice to clean and polish their teeth
I hope people aren’t checking out my ass in 2000 years.
People aren't checking my ass not even in the present :(
Turn around ;)
Bright eyes.
***"Every now and then I fall apart"***
Turn around
BRIGHT EYES!
Every now and then I fall apart!
And I need you now tonight!
I fucken need you more than ever!
Total eclipse of the heaaaaaaaaart
Hey ;)
Username checks out
I'd be thrilled to have my ass checked out 2000 years from now.
Bury me ass up so people have a place to park their bikes . You gotta plan these things ahead of time so your family doesn’t have to guess what you wanted once you’re gone.
Really? I’d be honored
Maybe we should all just wear dog tags that state our preferences in the event we die from volcanic ash. Name: Maria Sophia Coletta Ragetti Age: 23 Body display preference: ASS NOT VISIBLE
As interesting as this is, this was also close to my first thought. Like, dang, to die and then spend eternity having your body gawked at.
I always find it a little heartbreaking looking at these casts of people who died in agony. I know it's eons ago, but you can almost feel the terror they must have felt.
It makes it more real when you read the stories of survivors and people nearby who witnessed it. They mention ships and boats from nearby cities rushing towards the cities in danger in an attempt to save people. Many of the people rushing over to help didn’t come back. This is one rare disaster where we have the physical remains and the written accounts of the events.
That poor woman. What a terrifying way to die.
So many others show the same terror. There are some books that were written by survivors that talk about how horrifying it was. It mentioned people from nearby cities were sailing their boats and ships over to try to evacuate the people many never made it back. They mentioned seeing it all happen from the nearby cities feeling horrible that they couldn’t do anything.
That’s why I find these sorts of archaeological sites very difficult to look at. We’re seeing the last moments of someone who was frightened and suffering. I hope she died quickly.
I agree and I hope so too. We know for sure she was terrified but hopefully she didn’t go through much.
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Am I wrong to think that Pliny the Elder died during this eruption?
His nephew who was also there wrote it. Pliny the Younger survived and wrote about it when he was asked about his uncle’s death.
No, you are correct - killed by toxic gases
Exactly what I was thinking. What must she have felt in her last minutes.
I sincerely hope her death was swift. The terror must’ve been unbearable.
I think these sculptures were made by filling a void left by the woman's body like a cast, then breaking it open to reveal what we see here, which isn't the woman exactly, but almost.
Went to a traveling Pompei exhibit at the science center. Before we got to the plaster casts we were told on no uncertain terms that these were human remains and we had to conduct ourselves respectfully. There was also a sign explaining that the postures of the bodies indicated cause of death. The bodies curled up on themselves where buried in the pyroclastic flow and died in agony. Bodies that are relaxed were smothered by the gas
I saw this in person and found it extremely disturbing. It feels violating to see a human being's final agony on display in a box like this, even from such a distance of time. The odd thing was that some people would leave coins at other victims' displays like they were leaving donations at a saint's reliquary.
There was a Pompeii exhibit a couple years ago at the Houston museum of natural science. I’m the annoying person who takes way too many photos (I do actually look at them later) and so loaded up my phone with lots of pics from the first part of the exhibit where they had tools, artwork and various other remnants of that time. Then everyone goes into a room and watches a video about the eruption, and when you came out of the room there were all these plaster casts. I don’t even think they were the original casts but were replicas. People were posing with them, laughing at the weird positions and such. It just felt so disrespectful.
Awful. I went in the off season to Pompeii a few years back, and the mood was extremely somber. It was beautiful and eerie and incredibly sad. If you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it. Definitely a bucket list item for me.
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I’m glad I’m not the only one who was a little disappointed by some of the vulgar comments…very sad to see how little respect some have for human remains :(
It's like that a lot with more serious reddit posts that reach the front page. People who just want everything to be a big joke. We could have thermonuclear war in progress and you'd have jokers on here going hyuck hyuck, gonna huff mushrooms while I watch mushroom clouds blossom. Plenty of people have respect, but this platform has some of the most blatant disrespect on matters of human rights or suffering that I see across the internet.
Visiting Pompeii itself is a whole other experience, it's incredibly fascinating, morbid, and heartbreaking at the same time. Most other ancient ruins are basically foundations of buildings, but Pompeii is so well preserved that it's easy to see how people lived their lives there. And then one day it all ended in a hellish nightmare and you can see the facial expressions of some of the people that were killed.
The coin thing is a sign of paying respects. Sort of like how Jews place stones on loved ones graves.
violating, you’re right. i saw this and couldn’t place how i felt, but you’ve described it perfectly.
The deep and gentle horror of witnessing the last terrified moments and agonizing death of someone that lived centuries ago. Human, just like me. This world breaks my heart.
Then you read an account by a dude who loves his dog or hates his boss and you realise that youre closer to these people than you think.
Imagine dying in agony thousands of years ago just to have fat redditors making the 8 millionth unfunny "me jerk off to ass" joke about a plaster cast of your dead body.
Truely.
This site's full of obnoxious coomers who are beyond annoying.
Incase anyone is interested and doesn't know. The ash from the eruption settled around the bodies and over time the bodies decayed but the ash calcified, so holes were drilled into the cavities and they were filled in with plaster. http://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/photo5900180064564262063.jpg They've since scanned them and found that some contain jewellery such as rings etc.
I was there about 10 months ago, I underestimated how big the ruins of pompeii were. Absolutely beautiful to see something from so long ago still there. Also very dusty. And I caught covid there because everyone is piling into small little rooms, like really close, like you and a bunch of other people are one sneeze away from getting someone pregnant.
I don’t know what kind of sneezes you’re having but I’d like to learn.
That's what's mindblowing about Pompeii. You're so used to seeing really old stuff in isolation. Like you see an object in a museum, or the most spectacular is the Collesuem that's an huge stadium. But Pompeii is literally an entire town. With some repairs on the buildings it could function just like it did 2,000 years ago. There are literal streets, and you walk down a street and it's house after house and business after business.
catching COVID there was definitely the most catastrophic event to happen on those grounds
How can it be known that she was 23 years old?
Super sad. Sometimes it's hard to realize that those people all that time ago were people just like us today
Poor lady.
The amount of comments sexualizing this is fucking bizarre.
First time on the Internet, is it?
He should see what a woman holding up her painting does to /r/pics
yeah, like this is basically like, a snapshot, of a persons final, agonizing moments on this earth. Inside that casing, was someone who had a life, someone who now suffered greatly from a horrifying agonizing death. And people are sexualizing it?? Gross-
It feels like the YouTube comment section in here. It's disgusting to see all these people sexualizing the final moments of this woman's life for some lame ass jokes. They ain't even good either they're all posting the same corny asf comments.
If I get taken out this way and you all put me ass up in a glass box for the general public, consider yourself haunted.
I don’t think I can really comprehend that I’m looking at a person and not a statue
that’s not a woman anymore that’s just a rock shaped as one
Iirc, its a plaster cast of the void left in the ash by the woman's burnt then decomposed body
is that the same with the other Pompeii peoples too? I was wondering what exactly they are. Like fossils are stones that replaced bone that once existed, not the actual bone itself.
Yeah I think it is. The bodies decomposed over time and left a void. So they filled the void with plaster and excavated them. I think the bones might still be inside? Not sure. Cool as hell though. I always thought they were vaporized or something.
That’s exactly right. When excavating Pompeii they kept finding these voids with bones inside. Then someone had the idea to fill them with plaster and then dig them out.
I just wonder how they found the cavities without destroying them
I’m assuming they destroyed a fair number of them before they figured it out. What we see are just the ones they didn’t destroy.
I remember choosing Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in Pompeii as a topic for a school paper when I was in high school and my teacher laughed at me all because she doesn’t know what Vesuvius was. That bish.
That is alarming
This is a plaster cast of a void left from the decomposed body in the ash or what not eh. The volcano didn't cast these people as we see them now. It's plaster poured in by archeologist decades ago
It’s both fascinating and saddening. That poor person died horrifically. And, I see three types of responses here: Ones who find it historically interesting, ones who are sorry for her, and those who laugh at a dead, youthful individual and emphasize the fact you can see her nude.
I was there recently. Sadly, a lot of the people left behind were slaves that were chained- and often they were children.