There are many touching facts about the Pompeians, frozen forever in 79. Some of the bodies are on display for tourists in the Pompeian Garden of the Fugitives, but most are kept in the storerooms of the local museum. At the same time, it was traditionally believed that the death of all the inhabitants of Pompeii was long and painful: they inhaled ashes, which turned into a kind of cement in their lungs, blocking their breathing. But a group of Naples volcanologists led by Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo came to completely different conclusions that debunked this theory …
They came to the conclusion that the victims did not rush about, did not agonize in suffocation and did not gasp for air - they were instantly killed by the pyroclastic flow.
According to the calculations of volcanologists, Vesuvius ejected six such streams one after another. The first three stopped, just short of reaching the city, located 4.5 km from the base of the volcano. It was they who destroyed all life in neighboring Herculaneum, Stabiae and the seaside town of Oplontis, which had the misfortune to be located a little closer to the volcano (and which, alas, are rarely remembered as victims of that disaster). But the death of Pompey came from a fourth wave 18 m high, which rushed at the speed of a modern car (approximately 104 km / h) and covered the city with hot gas. Everything lasted no more than a minute, maybe even less. But that was enough for hundreds of people to die instantly.
Volcanologists examined the remains of 650 Pompeians and compared them with 37 skeletons found at Oplontis and 78 from Herculaneum. From the color and structure of the bones, they calculated that the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Oplontis died from a pyroclastic flow with a temperature of 500-600 ° C, and the Pompeians from a stream that was colder: 250-300 ° C. In the first case, people were instantly burned to the bone, and in the second - not. That is why in Herculaneum there was no whole human flesh, which, being covered with ash, would then create a cavity, as happened in Pompeii.
But how, then, can one explain that most of the Pompeians, as their plaster casts show, have wide open mouths? After all, this is what made it possible to attribute their death to suffocation in the first place. Volcanologists give their answer - cataleptic rigor mortis. The unfortunate ones froze in those positions in which they were suddenly overtaken by a wave of hot gas. Indeed, a sharp muscle spasm stopped very many of them in motion, for example, in a running position, but a person who lacks breathing cannot run. According to Mastrolorenzo, the victim's open mouth is the last cry of pain, not a desire to breathe; hands raised to the face are the result of a convulsive spasm, and not protection from ash.
Why did everyone always explain the poses of the victims by suffocation? Exclusively thanks to the persuasiveness of the story of the Roman historian Pliny the Younger, who told Tacitus in letters about the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, during the eruption. At the time of the eruption, he and his family were in the port of the Gulf of Naples near Pompeii. Pliny the Elder, admiral of the Roman fleet, headed the squadron to the dying cities. He soon reached the nearest one, Stabius.
But as soon as the admiral and his team went ashore, a poisonous sulfur cloud enveloped the coast. Pliny the Younger writes: “My uncle got up, leaning on two slaves, and immediately fell … I think, because of the thick fumes, he caught his breath. When daylight returned, his body was found intact, dressed as he was; he looked more like a sleeping person than a dead person. Rescuers died of asphyxiation, and 2000 refugees died with them.
But the fact is that in Pompeii in the Pliny position, archaeologists rarely find bodies, while most of those who remained in the city were actively engaged in something at the time of death.
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