The plaster casts of 86 agonized victims of the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD near Pompeii will go on exhibit May 26, 2015, in National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy.
People of Pompeii, a Roman city, were in their death throes when a cloud of gas from the volcano enveloped them, killing them. The gas was 300 degrees centigrade (572 degrees F). Clearly, from the expressions of their faces and their bodily contortions they were caught by surprise when the ash cloud finally consumed them.
An article on ANSA.com states:
Teeth protrude from lips stretched from pain. Smoldering, encrusted skin, protruding skulls and bones, exposed jaws were all caught in the moment of death, when a glowing, 300C cloud seared surfaces of the bodies in a single stroke, leaving their insides soft, and burying them under ash and stones. Among them is the family of the House of the Golden Bracelet: a woman with a baby on her lap. Near her is a man and another child, perhaps two years old.
Harrowing image shows a child sitting on his mother when the ash cloud hit. Credit: Splash News
The actual bodies, which were ossified by the heat, will not go on display but rather the plaster casts that show the exact position the bodies were found in.
Mᴀssimo Osanna, the superintendent of archaeology in Pompeii and nearby towns said: “Until now they had never been surveyed, out of a sense of ethics with which these human remains were always treated. No statues of plaster or bronze, but real people who should be treated with respect.”
Some of the victims of volcanic gas cloud were clearly in agony (Bigstock pH๏τo)
