What the writer Luigi Settembrini defined as “the pain of death that takes on body and form” once again takes shape in Pompeii, in the form of men who lost their lives during the eruption, the traces of whose death throes have remained imprinted in the ash for 2000 years.
During excavations at Civita Giuliana, around 700 meters northwest of Pompeii, in the area of the suburban villa where in 2017 the servile part had been discovered along with the stable containing the remains of three harnessed horses, 2 skeletons of individuals have been found, reports pompeii_sites on their Twitter page.
Just as in the first excavation campaign when it was possible to crate plaster casts of the horses, today it has been possible to make casts of the two victims who were found near the cryptoporticus, in the noble part of the villa which the latest investigations have focused on.
The technique of casts has gradually refined over the decades and today returns the image of two fugitives with surprising details, from the drapery of ancient Roman clothes to the veins of the hands that still seem to pulsate tightly in pain.
The casts of two men were thus brought to light, most likely a rich Pompeian and his slave, who died in 79 AD during the great eruption of Vesuvius.