They find in Pompeii the remains of two victims of the eruption of 79 AD C.

The eruption must have surprised both victims as they tried to escape. One was a young man, 1.56 meters tall, dressed in a short tunic and was probably a slave. The other was a man of 1.62 meters, between 30 and 40 years old.

The remains of two victims of the eruption in Pompeii of the year 79 d. C. were discovered and their bodies could be reconstituted in the position they had at the time of their death, the famous Italian archaeological site announced in a statement Saturday.

The two skeletons were found during excavations about 700 meters northwest of Pompeii, in a large villa on the outskirts of the famous Roman city.

The remains were found in a 2.20 meter wide corridor that gave access to the upper floor of the villa, where archaeologists had identified cavities in the layers of hardened ash. By pouring plaster into these cracks, according to the technique invented by Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1867, they were able to reconstitute the bodies in their original position.

The eruption certainly surprised both victims as they tried to escape. The first, a young man, 1.56 meters tall, dressed in a short tunic and who must have been between 18 and 25 years old, was probably a slave, as suggested by several vertebrae compressed due to hard physical work. His head is tilted back and his teeth and skull are visible.

The second victim has his arms folded with his hands on his torso, in a position similar to that of the other victims found in Pompeii. It is a man of 1.62 meters, between 30 and 40 years old, dressed in a tunic and coat and is probably the owner of the young slave found next to him.

Pompeii, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, is the second most visited site in Italy after the Colosseum in Rome, with about four million visitors in 2019. Only one third of the city, which currently covers 44 hectares near in Naples, it was excavated by archaeologists.