Archaeologists believe they have discovered the 'lost' survivors of Pompeii who managed to survive the terrifying 18-hour volcanic eruption 2,000 years ago.
Scientists believed that no one would survive the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, but recent discoveries have changed this narrative, indicating that the story of the Vesuvius eruption is no longer just a story of annihilation, but also includes the stories of those who survived the disaster and continued to rebuild their lives.
A new PBS documentary, Pompeii: The New Dig, examines how it is highly likely that many, if not most, of the city's inhabitants managed to escape early enough to avoid the fate of some. Others were buried under ash and rocks ejected from the volcano.
In a recently released trailer for the documentary, archaeologists discovered new ruins unearthed in Pompeii that reveal a city frozen in time.
Among all the ruins, excavators revealed signs of life continuing after the volcanic eruption, indicating that people were able to survive the natural disaster.
One of the scientists explained in the documentary's trailer how these results "tripled" what people thought Pompeii's population was.
The new evidence is described as "the largest archaeological excavation in Pompeii in a generation" and strongly points to the possibility of population flight.
The human remains previously found in Pompeii represent only a small portion of its population.
Many items such as carts, horses, ships and strong chests were missing, leading to theories that some people used them to escape.
This alone suggests that many people may have fled in time to survive.
But since searching for these people was never a top priority, no evidence was provided to support these claims. However, it now appears that significant progress has been made.
Separate research by PBS also bolsters claims of survivors.
Using a method that involved searching for Roman names unique to Pompeii in surrounding communities after the eruption, evidence of more than 200 survivors was found in 12 cities.
These municipalities are located primarily in the general area of Pompeii, and it appears as if most of the survivors stayed as close to their city as possible.
Moreover, they preferred to settle with other survivors and relied on social and economic networks from their home cities during their resettlement, PBS claims.
The report adds that some families who apparently fled continued to live in their new communities.
For example, the Caltellius family settled in Ostia, where they founded a temple to the Egyptian god Serapis, and members of them married into another family of fugitives called the Munatius family. Together they allegedly founded a wealthy and successful extended family.
However, things were not quite so rosy for others believed to have fled. Ms. Fabia Secondina ended up in Puteoli, the second busiest coastal city in Roman Italy. She married a wrestler named Aquarius the Retiarius, but she experienced severe financial hardship after his death at the age of 25.
Three other very poor families from Pompeii, the Aviani, Attili and Masorean families, survived and settled in a small, poor community about ten miles east of Pompeii called Nuceria.
This information comes after the discovery of two-thousand-year-old graffiti, indicating that brutal gladiatorial battles in ancient Rome were not just a sport for adults.
Archaeologists believe that the drawings were drawn by children as young as five years old, which indicates that they attended bloody gladiatorial battles in the city, and perhaps they were drawing what they saw in an attempt to process the shock of what they saw.
Surprizing!
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