It’s a tragic moment, frozen in time: a family of four sheltering under a staircase as ash and pumice rain down on Pompeii. But now scientists studying DNA from the victims say this famous scene is not what it seems, with the “mother” of the group actually being a man.
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the Roman city of Pompeii was destroyed, its remaining inhabitants buried under a thick blanket of ash and pumice. These victims were later immortalized by archaeologists who used plaster to fill the voids left by their bodies.
Now researchers say DNA evidence is debunking long-held assumptions about the identities and relationships of those captured by some of the most famous cast members.
Write in the journal Current Biologyscientists in Italy, Germany and the US report how they extracted ancient nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from samples of bone fragments mixed with plaster taken from 14 casts that were being restored, five of which were studied in detail.
Among them were three of the four individuals found at the foot of the stairs in a richly decorated building named “the House of the Golden Bracelet”. The nickname refers to the jewelery worn on the arm of one of the two adults found with a child on their hip – circumstances which led to the idea that this victim was the mother of the two children in the group. with the other adult identified as the father.
However, the new analysis reveals that the bracelet-wearing individual was male and had black hair and dark skin. In addition, the team found no evidence that he was related to the two babies – who were both boys. Indeed, the data suggest that the ancestors of these three victims had their origins in different eastern Mediterranean or North African populations. The researchers suggest that there were also genetic clues suggesting that the other adult could also have been male.
The study also offers fresh insights into the relationship of two victims, preserved in an embrace, found in a building known as the House of the Cryptoporticus. While some archaeologists have suggested that this cast could represent a mother and daughter, two sisters or a pair of lovers, the new analysis rules out the first two interpretations, revealing that one of the victims was a man and that the pair were not was related through the female line.
“These discoveries challenge long-held interpretations, such as associating jewelry with femininity or interpreting physical proximity as an indicator of biological relationships,” the researchers write, noting that it is possible that restorers in the past may have altered attitudes and relationships manipulated positioning of casts to aid storytelling.
However, the analysis did not overturn every narrative: the team’s analyzes confirmed that a victim found alone in a room in a large building known as the Villa of Mysteries was male, as previously thought, and revealed that he may have been a local in Pompeii.
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a professor at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the work, said the study of DNA in skeletons from Pompeii and the nearby town of Herculaneum had enormous potential.
“Inevitably, this kind of new evidence turns some older interpretations, especially those based on rather romantic assumptions, on their head,” he said.
But, he added, the most interesting question is where the people come from.
“One would predict significant diversity in a society heavily based on slavery,” he said. “For example, it is very interesting that they identified an individual with dark skin and black hair, which strongly refers to an addicted person from Africa.”
Phil Perkins, a professor of archeology at the Open University, added that the study suggested that the victims found under the stairs could have been migrants, or descended from Italy.
“The research shows that scientific analysis can provide new insight into the lives of the victims of Pompeii, and provides further evidence of human mobility around the Mediterranean in the Roman period,” he said. “The people of Pompeii were not Romans from the city of Rome, but people from the Mediterranean.”
