

For many of them, the scale of the disaster strikes a chord. As technology improves, researchers are able to gain even more insights into the ancient city.

Much of Pompeii has not yet been excavated. Some smaller prizes were issued in April, and the contest will continue through the rest of the year. Earlier this year, Vesuvius became the center of a contest offering $1 million to anyone who can invent new ways to use artificial intelligence to decipher scrolls buried in the eruption. Researchers think that the two were trying to escape the destruction and managed to evade the initial layer of ash, but were killed by a blast the next day.īeyond human remains, many other recent discoveries have been made at the site, including several ancient homes. Until the recent discovery, human remains hadn’t been found at the site since 2020, when a team uncovered the skeletons of a wealthy man and an enslaved individual at a villa in the city’s outskirts. The Philippines’ most active volcano began spewing lava and sulfuric gas Sunday, prompting the evacuation of nearly 13,000 residents in the southeast of the country’s main island, authorities. Once started, the destruction went on for two days. The earthquake likely hit before the eruption began in earnest. Researchers think that one of the men raised an arm to protect himself from the falling stone. The newly discovered skeletons showed signs of bone fracturing, indicating that “the men probably died as a result of multiple injuries sustained as the building they sought refuge in caved,” as the Guardian’s Angela Giuffrida and Jude Dunhill write. The Pompeii earthquake, however, caused devastating damage. As Wired’s Erik Klemetti wrote in 2015, magma movements can cause several different kinds of earthquakes-but they tend to be small, often passing unnoticed. The relationship between earthquakes and volcanoes is complex. Unlike the 2021 eruption, activity decreased significantly after less than three weeks. After the eruption onset, seismicity and deformation rates quickly slowed. Pompeii Archaeological Park / Italian Minister of Culture on August 3, a new fissure opened in Meradalir valley, located on the northern ridge of the March 2021 lava field. Until now, human remains hadn't been found at Pompeii since 2020.

Per a statement from Pompeii Archaeological Park, the victims probably died when a building collapsed around them. “In recent years, we have realized there were violent, powerful seismic events that were happening at the time of the eruption,” says Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of Pompeii Archaeological Park, according to the Associated Press. The Roman city became a treasure trove for researchers, and even today it continues to reveal its secrets.īut when Italian archaeologists recently uncovered the bodies of two men, they realized that they were killed not by the volcano but by the disaster that immediately preceded it. The name Pompeii conjures up images of pyroclastic flows and volcanic ash: When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., the disaster left buildings, bodies and artifacts frozen in time.
