More than 20 plaster casts of victims who died in the catastrophic volcano eruption in Pompeii, Italy, went on display for the first time on Thursday in a permanent exhibition.
The casts, which academics call “imprints of pain,” dramatically capture the exact position each resident of the city died in 79 AD. The reproductions were created by pouring liquid plaster into the voids left by the decomposed bodies in the hardened ash.
Curators wanted to “give dignity to these people who are like us — women, children, men — who died during the eruption, but at the same time make it understandable, inclusive and somehow joyful to understand what really happened in Pompeii,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
Photo: AP
Invented by Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1863, the recreation technique faithfully preserves the position, expression of pain and clothing details of the victims, making them unique testimonies. It is still used by the team of academics conducting research at the park.
Pompeii is the only site in the world that allows the recovery of this type of evidence, enabling visitors to see the reproduction of objects that were destroyed, and the people who lived and died at that moment.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius killed an estimated 2,000 residents within the city, with total regional casualties reaching up to 16,000. The city of Pompeii was covered by ash, then later solidified by pyroclastic flows.
Photo: AP
During the excavations in Pompeii, the remains of more than a thousand victims of the eruption were found trapped in their homes or shelters, buried by a rain of pumice stones and volcanic rock, or killed by the collapse of roofs and walls under the weight of the volcanic debris, which reached a height of about 3m.
The 22 casts were chosen among the best preserved remains. The victims were found across the city, from the inner areas to the gates and roads leading out of the town, where the inhabitants fled in search of safety.
“They have a strong emotional impact on visitors and can be very moving,” said Silvia Martina Bertesago, archeologist at the park.
“Through the analyzes we can carry out today with increasingly advanced techniques, we can also understand their age and sex, but also whether they had particular diseases or particular types of diet,” she said.
The exhibition is housed in the porticoes of the Palestra Grande, located opposite the amphitheater. As well as an area dedicated to human remains, it also includes displays of findings such as plants and food that remained buried for centuries under meters of ash and lava.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS