Victims who perished in Pompeii after the devastating AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have been killed by a simultaneous earthquake, research has suggested.
For decades, scholars have debated whether seismic activity occurred during the eruption of Vesuvius in southern Italy nearly 2,000 years ago, and not just before that, as reported by Pliny the Younger in his letters.
The article, published Thursday in the academic journal Frontiers in Earth Science, took a new look at the now world-famous archaeological site and argued that one or more simultaneous earthquakes were “a contributing cause of building collapse and death of the inhabitants.”
“Our conclusions suggest that the effects of building collapse caused by syn-eruptive seismicity (seismic activity at the time of an eruption) should be considered as an additional cause of death in ancient Pompeii,” it said. .
Archaeologists estimate that 15 to 20% of Pompeii’s population died in the eruption, mostly from thermal shock as a giant cloud of gases and ash covered the city.
Volcanic ash then buried the Roman city, perfectly preserving the houses, public buildings, objects and even the people until it was discovered in the late 16th century.
In May 2023, archaeologists uncovered the skeletons of two men who appeared to have been killed not by heat and clouds of fiery gas and ash, but by trauma from collapsed walls – providing precious new data.
One of the victims was discovered with his left hand raised, as if to protect his head.
“It is noteworthy that such traumas are analogous to those of individuals involved in modern earthquakes,” wrote the authors, who determined that the collapsed walls were not due to falling rocks and debris, but to seismic activity.
“In a broader view that takes into account the entire city, we consider as a working hypothesis that the casualties caused by seismically induced building faults may not be limited to the two individuals,” the authors wrote.
The intersection of phenomena of both volcanic and seismic activity requires a multidisciplinary approach, the study argued, with the collaboration of archaeologists and earth scientists.
