Pompeii, found the skeleton of a man with a limp: a heartbreaking discovery

A new discovery at the Pompeii excavations has been made and, this time, it is heartbreaking: it is the skeleton of a 35-year-old man who was crushed and decapitated by a 300-pound boulder.The skeleton was found lying on his back, presumably because, in his flight, he looked over his shoulder to see the advancing lava and, at that moment, a boulder ran over him striking him in the torso, most likely severing his head cleanly.

What makes the finding even more puzzling is that his tibia, anthropologist Valeria Amoretti points out, shows traces (after two thousand years still evident) of a nasty bone infection that must have caused him great pain and made it difficult for him to escape. This means that the poor man tried to escape from certain death when it was too late and with a limping step, while the ash rain had already broken through roofs, collapsed houses and two meters of lapilli had already been deposited behind him.
A “dramatic and exceptional” discovery, as director Massimo Osanna called it.

The find took place in Regio V, right at the corner of the Vicolo dei Balconi (the street unearthed just over a week ago) and the Vicolo delle Nozze d’Argento. “We found it in a widening where perhaps there was a fountain,” director Osanna told ANSA ’s microphones, “a corner of the street that was still covered by a good level of pyroplastic layer.”
That of the claudicant fugitive is “a discovery that will add an important new piece to the history of Pompeii,” Osanna concludes. “This exceptional find,” the director added, “harks back to the similar case of a skeleton found by Amedeo Maiuri in the House of the Blacksmith and the subject of recent study. These are the remains of a limping individual, also probably prevented from escaping by motor difficulties and left on display in situ at the time. Beyond the emotional impact of these discoveries, the possibility of comparing these finds, comparing pathologies and lifestyles, the dynamics of escape from the eruption, but above all of investigating them with tools and professionalism increasingly specific and present in the field, contribute to an increasingly accurate account of the history and civilization of the time, which is the basis of archaeological research.”

Source ANSA

Pompeii, found the skeleton of a man with a limp: a heartbreaking discovery

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