New Pompeii discovery showcases desperate attempt for survival from eruption

WASHINGTON (TNND) — A new discovery from Pompeii is shedding light on the horrific scenes after the volcanic explosion, including that of one family's desperate attempt for survival.

Experts at Pompeii Archaeological Park recently excavated a home called the "House of Elle and Frisso" along Via del Vesuvio.

The home was discovered in 2018 and was named after a mythological painting found in one of the rooms. While the excavation was underway, a large entrance hall leading to an atrium, a bedroom and a banquet hall were also found.

It was there that they also discovered how a family inside the home tried to save themselves from the volcanic ash, gas and dust enveloping the city.

Archaeologists discovered what appeared to be a bed wedged against a bedroom door in the home.

"This opening could have determined the entry of the lapilli that rained down inside the house during the first phases of the eruption, and from which the victims, found today, had tried to protect themselves by taking refuge in a room, barred with a bed. It was possible to reproduce the cast of the latter, after having identified some voids in the solidified ash, formed following the organic decomposition of the wood. Plaster was poured into the voids to reconstruct the shape of the bed preserved as an imprint in the ash," the study read.

During the excavation, the remains of at least four individuals, including a child, were discovered.

“Excavating and visiting Pompeii means coming face to face with the beauty of art but also with the precariousness of our lives," Director of the Park Gabriel Zuchtriegel said.

In this small, wonderfully decorated house we found traces of the inhabitants who tried to save themselves, blocking the entrance to a small room with a bed of which we made a cast. This is because the lapilli, the volcanic stones that risked invading the space, entered through the opening in the roof of the atrium. They didn’t make it, in the end the pyroclastic current arrived, a violent flow of very hot ash that filled every room here, as elsewhere."

The city of Pompeii has been buried by Mount Vesuvius's eruption since 79 AD, and it's one of the most well-known archaeological sites in modern times.

Excavations on the city began in the 1700s, uncovering artifacts and buildings, giving insight into the lives of those living in Pompeii before the eruption. There have also been solemn discoveries, like the remains of over one thousand victims.

About two-thirds of Pompeii has been excavated.