Bad vibrations — One more way to die: Tremors when Vesuvius erupted collapsed shelter walls Two male skeletons showed signs of severe fracture and trauma injuries.
Jennifer Ouellette – Jul 18, 2024 4:01 am UTC Enlarge / Two skeletons found in the ruins of a Pompeii building may have been crushed by wall collapses triggered by earthquakes.Pompeii Archaeological Park reader comments 8
Archaeologists have hotly debated the precise cause of death of those who perished in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Did they die of asphyxiation, from the extreme heat, or from a combination of factors? A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science examines the complicating effects of earthquakes that occurred just prior to and concurrently with the eruption. Of most interest was the discovery of two skeletons of people who likely died when their shelter collapsed around them, weakened by the seismic tremors.
As previously reported, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in particular. Archaeologists believed that the vast majority of the victims died of asphyxiation, choking to death on the thick clouds of noxious gas and ash.
However, a 2001 study in Nature, co-authored by University of Naples archaeologist Pierpaolo Petrone, estimated a temperature of 500 Celsius (932 Fahrenheit) for the pyroclastic surge that destroyed Pompeii, sufficient to kill inhabitants in fractions of a second. In 2018, we reported on Petrone’s conclusion that inhabitants of Herculaneum may have suffered a similar fate. He observed fracturing in the bones of some 100 excavated skeletons, as well as “cracking and explosion” of the skullcaps, consistent with forensic cases where skulls burst from extreme heat. Further ReadingThese Pompeii victims choked on ash while covering themselves with garments
Petrone’s 2020 follow-up studyoffered additional evidence that extreme heat killed many victims, based on analysis of one victim’s skull in particular, first excavated in the 1960s from Herculaneum. There was evidence of brain matter remains in the skull. Usually such brain matter would be “saponified” by the extreme heatthat is, it turned to soap (glycerol and fatty acids). But this victim’s brain matter had been vitrified, i.e., fused into glass. Later that year, Petrone reported fresh evidence that this might, indeed, have been the case, announcing his discovery of preserved human neurons in the victim with the “glassified” brain, although other scientists expressed skepticism about that finding.
A 2023 multidisciplinary analysis of seven plaster casts from Pompeii concluded that these victims, at least, likely survived the early eruption and died some 20 hours later from asphyxiation, although the authors were careful to emphasize that their findings were only applicable to these particular cases. “It is likely that the catastrophic eruption killed people in different ways,” the authors of that 2023 study wrote, concluding that “generalizing and supporting a sole hypothesis of death becomes overly reductive.” Seismic shocks
Now we have yet another twist: Some Pompeii residents may have perished due to the cumulative effects of earthquakes and aftershocks. According to Domenico Sparice, a volcanologist at INGV-Osservatorio Vesuviana, and co-authors, there is historical evidence of seismic activity in the decades prior to the 79 CE eruption. For instance, an earthquake in 6263 CE caused extensive damage to buildings in Pompeii such that repairs were still underway 17 years later. Page: 1 2 Next → reader comments 8 Jennifer Ouellette Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Related Stories Today on Ars
