Original subtitles

(slow music)

(birds cawing)

- [Interpreter] Pompeii, 79 AD.

The inhabitants of this small Roman resort don't know

what's about to hit them.

(speaking in foreign language)

Nearby, Mount Vesuvius is about to blow.

(rumbling)

2,000 years later, Pompeii has become

the most important archeological site in Europe.

Four million tourists flock there every year.

The forgotten city was rediscovered in 1748.

Since then, it has been cleaned up

and many buildings have been restored,

revealing to the world the most incredible vestiges

of the Roman era.

However, preserving the site is so expensive

and so complicated that no significant excavation

has taken place since the 1950s.

In 2010, the collapse of the gladiators' barracks

drew the world's attention

to the degraded condition of Pompeii.

Water saturation in the unexcavated sections threatened

to push over adjacent buildings,

jeopardizing this historic site.

So the European community and the Italian government

have released 105 million euros, $115 million,

to save the city.

This is the great Pompeii project.

I'm Massimo Osanna,

the director of the Pompeii archeological park,

and I'm about to experience the most intense moment

of my career.

I will be leading the greatest archeological excavations

of Pompeii in 70 years.

We're going to uncover two houses

and all the wonders they contain.

A charcoal inscription could perhaps call into question

the date of the eruption.

There are undoubtedly victims buried

under the volcanic layers.

Who were these people?

How did they live?

How did they die?

(speaking in foreign language)

For the past two years,

this story has haunted and thrilled me.

The story I'm going to tell you is

about the neighborhood hidden under this triangle of land.

We're going to completely clear

and excavate this fragile 2,000 square meter area

to protect the Pompeii site from water infiltration.

First of all, we need to define the excavation program

with the archeologists,

who will supervise the field operations.

I'm accompanied by Marco Fabbri, who leads the team,

Teresa Virtuoso, and Federica Zabotti,

each of them responsible for an excavation area.

It's extraordinary.

Underneath our feet, there is an ancient city,

a piece of Pompeii never excavated before,

with streets, houses, objects.

There are probably also victims down there,

people who could not escape the eruption of Vesuvius.

We're all aware

that this mission will be a thrilling adventure.

(dramatic music)

Spring 2018.

Rescue archeology started a few months ago

and the vegetation covering the site has been cleared.

We must build embankments

with a slope of approximately 35 degrees

along more than two kilometers, which is over a mile.

The idea is to reduce the soil pressure

against the structures, facilitating the flow of water.

The first discoveries appear on these slopes,

where we find sections of houses with decorations.

In one of them, we've just found a domestic altar,

a lararium surrounded by spectacular paintings.

Hello.

Wow.

Teresa, it's fantastic. - Hello.

Fantastic, truly magnificent.

- [Interpreter] Unbelievable.

There's actually a symmetry,

the lararium with the two lares and the lamp.

Snakes, these beneficial demons,

which along with the eggs

and the pine cone provide protection and fertility,

and below the peacock, which is a sacred animal.

So it's really a little family sanctuary with the altar.

And here, there are still traces of the right.

There are traces of burning.

They clearly made a sacrifice shortly before.

A sacrifice, and around there are ashes.

So it's a trace of the last days,

even in terms of worship.

On the other hand, here there's a hunting scene

and the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil.

Beginning of summer 2018.

The archeologists are to begin the excavation.

We're eager to discover this district

and we have nine months ahead of us.

Two important houses have been located.

The first one has been called the House of the Garden,

recognizable by its columns.

And the second one, the House of Jupiter,

with colored plaster rectangles.

The two houses are close to each other,

on either side of a small street

that runs alongside the enormous garden

of the House of the Silver Wedding,

one of the largest and richest houses in Pompeii,

restored during the excavations of 1892.

We've just cleared part of this alley

and here is the first surprise.

An intact stratigraphy appears.

It reveals the different layers of volcanic material

with a thickness of four to five meters,

or just over 13 to 16 feet,

that were deposited in the street in less than 24 hours.

We remove tons of lapilli.

These are the famous pumice stones produced

by the volcanic rain of Vesuvius.

Claudio Scarpati is our volcanologist.

It's the first time he's been able

to observe the different volcanic layers over a large area.

- [Interpreter] During this excavation,

we can touch the volcanic matter and study it directly.

All these small, clear pumice stones emerged from Vesuvius

on the morning of August the 24th, 79 AD,

and piled up here on the street as you can see.

We've calculated the rate of accumulation

of these pumice stones during the eruption.

In Pompeii, it was about 15 centimeters per hour.

That means one hour later, there were 15, then 30,

and after four hours 60 centimeters, and so on.

(dramatic music)

Just imagine that 2,000 years ago, in a crater like this,

you could see an eruption column 32 kilometers high.

That is 30 times the height of this volcano.

The material of the eruption fell south,

covering first the entire city

with a lapilli layer of about three meters.

And then the eruption column collapsed on itself.

All the material, all the mixture of gases, ashes,

pumice stones fell to the ground

and spilled down the slopes,

forming what we call pyroclastic flow.

This pyroclastic flow finally reached Pompeii

and devastated the city.

Thousands of people died in Pompeii

during the different phases of the eruption.

For this reason, it's a unique place in the world

where you can directly observe the effects

of an explosive eruption in the center of a city.

(rumbling)

- [Interpreter] During the excavations of 1950,

these bodies were found.

They remain a strong image of Pompeii.

A century ago, the site director Giuseppe Fiorelli

had the brilliant idea of taking plaster casts

from the cavities left by the bodies in the volcanic matter.

It may be possible to make casts, plaster casts like these.

The cavity left by the decomposed body must be intact

and the imprint left by the body in the hardened ash

of the pyroclastic flow must be complete.

Without these conditions,

it's impossible to make the plaster flow into the cavity

and reproduce the body's shape at the time of death.

I hope we get lucky and find these kinds of intact cavities

but today the press have arrived

to document our first great discovery.

(upbeat music)

- [Interpreter] Here is the latest dramatic discovery

made in Pompeii.

The skeleton that was found

during the excavations started a few months ago

in zone five is still there,

in exactly the same position as it was 2,000 years ago

when Pompeii was buried.

- [Interpreter] In addition, there is a context

around the skeleton.

There's everything that the pyroclastic flow carried,

so we see here the power, the tragedy.

There are probably tree branches, pieces of collapsed walls.

- [Interpreter] Here's the skull,

the face of our individual.

- [Interpreter] In the laboratory,

anthropologist Valeria Amoretti reconstructs

the first skeleton found on the street in our neighborhood.

Unfortunately, we were unable to take a plaster cast.

Will we be able to work out who this man was?

It's impressive.

I remember that during the search, his mouth was open.

So now he's being reconstructed.

- [Interpreter] Yes.

A more or less anatomical reconstruction, yes.

- [Interpreter] It's fundamental for us

to understand the causes of death

and what prevented him from fleeing.

And of course, to know more about him.

What do we know?

- [Interpreter] For the moment, the biological data.

A male adult, 40 to 45 years old.

Height, one meter 72.

- [Interpreter] Having seen the orientation of the body,

I think this man was trying to escape on the lapilli layer.

Was he a resident?

Next to the skeleton, we found coins

and the remains of a leather purse.

He only had a purse

with a handful of bronze and silver coins,

which corresponds just under half the salary

of a middle-class family.

It's as if he had 700 euros on him.

And so...

- [Interpreter] The day's earning, or what else,

we'll never know.

- [Interpreter] Indeed.

Valeria, do you remember during the search,

we said to each other there were traces

of abnormalities on his tibia?

In the beginning, we even thought he was limping

or having some difficulties.

Maybe that means he was delayed in running away

because of difficulties in mobility.

Show me.

- [Interpreter] In fact, we find traces of a pathology

which is precisely highlighted by this porosity.

We even find a hypertrophic tibial shaft.

- [Interpreter] If our fugitive had a problem with his leg,

that means maybe he was limping, his purse in hand.

(slow music)

A few hours later, a new clue appears.

We found on the street the remains of several balconies.

One of these balconies is right next

to the place where the skeleton was found.

These pumice stones began to fill the streets

and by night they had already blocked the doors.

So the victim was fleeing from the second floor.

We found his body up there, almost three meters

or nine feet high above the ground.

That means he escaped from the second floor,

through one of the balconies of these houses,

which was the only way out.

One of the innovations of this excavation is

that we carry out a photogrammetric study of each layer

and each object we find.

It allows us to reproduce 3D models

of all the elements we discover.

So I decide to ask Francesca,

who's in charge of the surveys,

to show us the 3D model of the skeleton in place

and to match it with the location of the balcony.

The link between the skeleton

and the balcony seems pretty obvious to me.

Because this is the balcony,

this is the corner of the house,

and therefore it's possible that he fled in this direction,

went out on the balcony, climbed out that direction,

and walked out onto the lapilli area,

where he was finally swept away.

Here, we can see very clearly the connection

between the balcony and the skeleton.

Let's resume.

Our fugitive was therefore in a room

on the second floor of the houses.

He was probably waiting for the right moment

to leave with his savings.

Around 6:00 a.m., the lapilli rain stopped.

However, the real danger was unforeseeable.

(rumbling)

(man screams)

Federica is trained to identify the last waves

of pyroclastic flow in the houses.

These flows have solidified like thick layers of cement.

The intact parts have protected

very important archeological evidence.

And above all, it's in these volcanic layers

that we can find victims.

However, very soon we have an unpleasant surprise.

- [Interpreter] We found a small hole.

- [Interpreter] And looters probably came to this site,

removed the hardened flow, crossed this wall,

and entered this other room.

Then they branched off and continued in that direction.

- [Interpreter] Previous digging has compromised the layer.

You can see the holes in the walls made by the looters.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] Unfortunately, the site has been altered

by various activities after 79 AD.

We can date these interventions

between the periods of the Bourbons and the French reign.

That is, between the end of the 18th

and the beginning of the 19th centuries.

And as you can see, there are holes in the wall

that show us the presence of tunnels

that were dug to locate objects,

pieces of frescoes of great value.

- [Interpreter] Since the eruption,

Pompeii has been a vast hunting ground

for several generations of excavators,

authorized or clandestine,

who have dug trenches and tunnels.

The two houses have probably been emptied

of their valuables.

Right now, we fear that we won't find much.

It would be a disappointment for the whole team.

(slow music)

Despite the looting, the excavation in the House of Jupiter

reveals some interesting things.

The decoration of the atrium and the large central hall

with these painted plaster blocks mimic the colored marble

that belongs to the first Pompeiian style.

It means it's an old house,

built about 250 years before the eruption.

The owner probably wanted to keep the original style

of his house.

For now, we have no clues about his identity.

- [Interpreter] It's an amphora with a pretty handle.

Another saucepan.

This is for cooking.

- [Interpreter] Finally, the first objects

of everyday life in the House of Jupiter appear

in the middle of the lapilli.

Federica and Eliana discover many dishes

and vases of very fine quality.

Oddly, all the dishes were stored on the floor

in one of the rooms.

Why?

Was the house inhabited?

Had they collected all of these items in this room

to renovate the rest of the house?

It's a mystery.

- [Interpreter] Enrico is taking out the vases

and two boxes must be taken up there.

Take them one by one.

- [Interpreter] The found objects are taken

to a warehouse close to the excavation site,

where archeologists Alessandro

and Lia reassemble the pieces,

clean, and catalog them with extreme precision.

These are important clues

to understanding the function of the rooms,

the history of the house, and the identity of the owners.

Each object is compared to those already indexed

in the books.

- [Interpreter] It's a lenticular bottle.

- [Interpreter] Today they also received a bronze door lock

with its key.

- [Interpreter] There it is, that's it.

- [Interpreter] The lock stop was in the middle.

- [Interpreter] There's also the plate.

Did you see it?

- [Interpreter] It's the first time we find a plate.

- [Interpreter] After that, the objects are taken

to the restoration laboratory.

Today, we're taking the beautiful dishes

of the House of Jupiter there.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] Is it the same trademark?

- [Interpreter] Yes.

- [Interpreter] It has a foot shape.

What do you think?

- [Interpreter] Yes, we call it

(speaking in foreign language) in Latin.

- [Interpreter] It's wonderful.

- [Interpreter] It contains the name of the manufacturer.

It was a very common practice in the first century AD.

- [Interpreter] It's a small setting.

There's the dish, the bowl plate, the flat plate,

the gravy boat, and here's a cup.

Oh look, there's the weight there.

Magnificent.

- [Interpreter] There you go.

With a weight half a kilo.

- [Interpreter] Fantastic.

- [Interpreter] Look at this wonder.

- [Interpreter] This scale is superb.

- [Interpreter] Teresa?

- [Interpreter] Yes?

- [Interpreter] Did you see this?

- [Interpreter] Yes, very, very pretty.

It's a pair of tweezers.

- [Interpreter] They're the same as ours.

- [Interpreter] Yes, but much larger.

- [Interpreter] It's the same, the same.

And it works.

- [Interpreter] Look.

There's still a trace of the feet on top,

so I imagine there was a statue in this place.

- [Interpreter] The feet of a small statue here,

tweezers, a precision scale.

Who's the owner of the House of Jupiter

with such particular tastes?

He liked the colorful frescoes of another time,

probably someone cultivated.

What could this scale have been used for?

- [Interpreter] Here there is a 30 or a three.

No, it's a 30.

Here are five, a 20, a five, and a 10.

It's heavy.

In fact, it is a scale to measure small weights.

It could have belonged to a perfumer

but we're not going to say anything we're not sure of.

- [Interpreter] Do you see there are even pincers,

which in fact is a tool.

- [Interpreter] A precision tool.

It could be used to pick up granules.

- [Interpreter] Yes, I'll look at this.

It comes from the same room.

It's a key with a ring.

It probably belongs to a safe, a small safe.

- [Interpreter] The second house we are excavating,

the House of the Garden, is across the street,

almost opposite the House of Jupiter.

We've just cleaned the columns

that separate the garden from the house.

We remove the thick layer of lapilli

and soon a magnificent fresco appears.

- [Interpreter] It's a man, right?

Is this a bow?

We have a little work for you, Giova.

But you'll be happy.

Amazing, huh?

- [Interpreter] Fantastic.

- [Interpreter] Colossal, spectacular.

Carry on.

- [Interpreter] Thank you.

- [Interpreter] It's good work, isn't it?

- [Interpreter] Yeah, I know,

I have the greatest job in the world.

- [Interpreter] This fresco has been

extremely well preserved,

thanks to the thick layer of lapilli

that protected it for almost 2,000 years.

After several hours of cleaning,

the entire team of the Pompeii archeological park

have come to admire the first fresco

of the House of the Garden.

It seems to be a representation of Adonis.

(slow music)

In another corner of the house,

the archeologists discover the remains of a roof

in its original position.

Eliana Vollaro dedicated her thesis

to the rooftops of Pompeii and could not believe her eyes.

- [Interpreter] It didn't collapse, it's exactly as it was.

It's not usual to find a roof

in the state it was 2,000 years ago.

It's a wonder.

- [Interpreter] We will dissemble and store it tile by tile.

We'll restore the tiles

and then reassemble them identically with straw.

It's beautiful.

It's amazing how well-preserved it is.

Would you say everything is intact underneath?

- [Interpreter] With this roof

that has withstood the eruption,

I really hope to find a room that is intact below.

Also, in a small reception room near the garden,

we discovered a fresco depicting a sacrificial scene

in magnificent Pompeiian red.

However, what touched me the most that day was

a female portrait painted in a medallion.

In the Roman houses of the time,

one sometimes finds the portraits of the owners painted

in the triclinium, the large dining room.

At the entrance of this house on the garden side,

archeologist Patrizio Di Felice has just discovered

some graffiti on a wall.

Dr. Antonio Varone helps us decipher them.

A still inexperienced hand

drew the first letters of the alphabet.

A, B, the top of the B is very small,

and then began to write the C, as you can see here.

- [Interpreter] Yes, yes.

- [Interpreter] If you consider the height,

it was probably a child.

Someone small who may have been sitting down.

(playful music)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] I love to imagine

these little moments of life.

At that time, people wrote a lot on the walls.

Many inscriptions are still visible

almost everywhere in Pompeii.

Just above the letters of the alphabet,

Antonio Varone discovers an inscription

of a completely different type.

- [Interpreter] Here there is a first name, Leporis Fellas.

Fello is the verb that means oral sex, so it's...

- [Interpreter] It's clear.

- [Interpreter] Yes, it is.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] (mumbles) The writer once cited Leporis

in a text written in Greek and said,

"Sicilians, like the ancient Iole of Greece,

"name the hair as follows."

Leporis, so she's probably a Sicilian.

- [Interpreter] Who was called Little Hair.

- [Interpreter] Little Hair, yes.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] I have the impression

that Leporis could be one of the slaves

of the House of the Garden.

The more we clear this house, the more exciting it becomes.

The characters of this family come to life in my head

and I begin to have a little idea

about the appearance of the different spaces.

We're almost sure that there was no concluvium.

It was not open.

It was a completely covered atrium.

To see it more clearly, we call upon an architect

who specializes in ancient reconstructions (mumbles).

Based on the photos taken on the site

and the 3D renderings, he helps us to establish a model

of the house and the street.

There are traces of this little pillar here.

- [Interpreter] Yes.

We have the pillars in the lower part.

That's it here.

- [Interpreter] As if by magic,

the 3D model restores the decor.

A garden with a partly fallow vegetable patch

and the rear part of the house to the garden.

(gentle music)

In the excavation, the paintings located in the largest room

of the House of the Garden are being restored.

Now we can say with certainty that it is a triclinium,

the dining room where guests were received.

To access this area, you must go through an open space

in the garden called a portico, or porch.

And at the back, there was a small reception room

called the ecus.

(speaking in foreign language)

We have found some of these magnificent ceilings collapsed

under the weight of the lapilli.

By gently turning the fallen plaster on the ground over,

we can hope to restore some of these ancient wonders.

- [Interpreter] There's no timber framework,

so it could be the top of the wall

that would connect to the ceiling.

- [Interpreter] Oh, it fits.

- [Interpreter] Yes.

- [Interpreter] Perfect.

- It works. - It's beautiful.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] The triclinium was

the dining room of the time.

This room was reserved for guest receptions

and family meals.

The space was often richly decorated

and furnished with three beds, placed at right angles.

The lapilli layer was also removed in the atrium,

the large entrance space that serves most of the rooms.

Curiously, the floor was not yet finished.

It was also surprising to find a grain mill

and marble slabs still unpolished on the walls of the porch.

- [Interpreter] We begin to understand many things

about this house and the very exceptional quality

of its decoration.

When the eruption occurred,

the inhabitants were carrying out renovation works.

We found a mortar with traces of lime,

mixed with brick fragments.

The walls were not finished

and we found a concentration of materials typical

of a construction site,

so we can imagine that they were living in a house

that was being restored at the time.

- [Interpreter] Many of Pompeii's houses were being restored

at the time of the eruption.

In 62 AD, a strong earthquake destroyed a large part

of the buildings.

Many rich families went to the countryside

and left their slaves to watch over their houses

while they were being repaired.

For years, there was restoration in progress

in almost all areas of the city.

- [Interpreter] What strikes me here, you see,

is that compared to a normal street,

the level here is very low.

- [Interpreter] The level is very low.

- [Interpreter] There are missing cobblestones,

that's obvious,

because right there at the beginning of the street,

we saw cobblestones next to the lapilli.

And because of the lack of cobblestones,

a significant drop in level here.

And this drop prevented access in ancient Roman times.

- [Interpreter] It prevented access, yes.

- [Interpreter] So there's no doubt

that they were doing repair work in this place.

- [Interpreter] Indeed, they were mostly remaking the street

more than the sidewalk.

They were in the process of repairing the street.

- [Interpreter] Since we have the sewers here,

we can imagine that the level is also low

because they were cleaning and repairing the sewer system.

- [Interpreter] Yes, maybe it was

a sewer maintenance operation.

That could be an explanation.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] This other street in the neighborhood

was also under construction.

You can see Vesuvius from here.

This is the Street of Balconies.

We've given it this name

because we've found three balconies here.

Our fugitive tried to escape from one of these balconies,

located further down the street.

There's a good chance that all these people

were acquaintances of one another.

Soon, we'll have a more precise idea

of what happened during the last hours in this neighborhood.

(dramatic music)

In parallel with our excavation,

securing the adjacent streets compels us

to stop to take in some amazing frescoes.

- [Interpreter] Oh, this is really exceptional.

It's such a beauty.

- [Interpreter] This painting represents a Priapus,

the god of fertility in Greek mythology.

Placed at the entrance of a house,

the Priapus was intended to ward off bad luck and evil.

It ensured prosperity and fertility.

Time passes too quickly.

We must tidy up, classify,

and clean all these magnificent objects

that have been found.

Back to the excavation site.

In the House of Jupiter,

the archeologists have cleared the ground

and have just made an exceptional discovery.

Will we finally learn more about the owner?

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] It's amazing, look at the cobra.

- [Interpreter] The mosaics represent new scenes

that before this were unknown in the Roman world.

They were found in two different rooms.

- [Interpreter] It's a chimera, a chimera.

- [Interpreter] What bizarre iconography.

- [Interpreter] Yes, but it's an incredible thing.

- [Interpreter] A lion, Capricorn?

That looks like a kind of shield.

- [Interpreter] In any case,

it's something never seen before.

And now we're gonna study it.

- [Interpreter] It's too beautiful.

- [Interpreter] The figures represented

in these mosaics intrigue me.

They have no precedent in Pompeii.

So I head to Rome to the Library of the French Embassy

to try to understand this.

(slow music)

We have to identify the animals.

That's a panther, I think.

It fits very well with Dionysus.

So it's a panther.

Now let's see Orion.

He always carries a sword with him.

The sword shows us that it's him.

So these two mosaics represent the same myth

or two different moments of the same myth.

Here we have Orion as a hunter

and here he's been turned into a star

of the constellation of Orion, putting on wings,

his butterfly wings, because he no longer exists as Orion

but as Orion's psyche, the soul of Orion.

The owner of the House of Jupiter

knew Greek culture and astronomy.

He was undoubtedly a scholar,

an important figure in the neighborhood.

I wonder if he survived the eruption.

Summer's over and we are relieved

because most of the rescue archeology

in the Pompeii site has been completed.

The Street of Balconies is now clear

but there's still a whole mountain of lapilli

in the middle of the street to be removed

in order to uncover the entire street.

We've discovered many electoral inscriptions,

evidence that the street was very busy.

You can read the names of the candidates

for the next elections that would have been held

in the autumn, as every year.

Two names are recurrent, Caprasius and Albucius.

There is another inscription on this excavation

that has been on my mind for several days.

It was written with charcoal

on the walls of the atrium of the House of the Garden

and refers to a date.

This morning, I brought Giulia Ammannati,

paleographer of La Normale School of Pisa,

to help me decipher this inscription.

- [Interpreter] Here there's an X and a V, an I,

a point, and a K for (mumbles).

No, with another point for November.

Then we read (speaking in foreign language).

- [Interpreter] So it's on the 16th day

before the calendar November in the oil room.

- [Interpreter] Here we can see something with four lines.

It looks like a big X.

- [Interpreter] Yes, it goes until here.

- [Interpreter] Yes, but it's not necessarily a word.

It could be a number, a sum.

- [Interpreter] The interesting thing is this tool

which has been put there

and at the beginning we didn't understand why

because it's a tool for grain.

However, there it was used for--

- [Interpreter] Ah, for construction.

- [Interpreter] Yes, to make plaster, mortar.

- [Interpreter] Of course.

It might be interesting to reinterpret this inscription

with the reading key.

It could be an expense related

to the construction work they were doing.

- [Interpreter] It could be related to the restoration work,

For the oil room, we spent X.

- [Interpreter] For the oil mill, we spent X amount.

Why not?

- [Interpreter] Of course.

- [Interpreter] We can imagine

that the house was under construction.

That day, building materials were being delivered.

The oil room is mentioned in the inscription.

It was perhaps a shed or a storage room,

which could be related to the owner's professional activity.

In the meantime, the owner has apparently written

his daily expense on the wall to remember.

What interests me the most in this inscription is

the date of the November calendars.

In the Roman calender,

this corresponds to October the 17th.

And a new object found in the porch of the house

could be a clue to understanding this date.

It's a brazier, in bronze.

We've analyzed it in the laboratory.

I can't wait to know if it was used

in the days before the eruption.

What did you find?

- [Interpreter] We cleared the entire part with the lapilli.

- [Interpreter] The lapilli, yes.

- [Interpreter] And underneath, there are indeed ashes.

So this confirms that the brazier was used.

But its use is not quite clear.

It was probably used for heating.

But maybe the ashes were also used outside,

either as fertilizer or disinfectant.

- [Interpreter] The brazier had therefore been lit,

probably for the family to warm up in the evening.

An October evening.

The only information we had about the date

of the Vesuvius eruption were the writings

of Pliny the Younger,

who saw everything from the other side of the bay.

These writings mention the date of August 24th, 79.

Could they have been wrongly transcribed?

(speaking in foreign language)

Could the real date be October 79?

Some researchers have supported this hypothesis

for several years.

In some amphorae whose content has been analyzed,

researchers found samples of fruit harvested in the autumn.

Did Vesuvius erupt on October 24th, 79

and not on August 24th?

I brought Antonio Varone back

to find out the results of his analysis.

- [Interpreter] The inscription was made with charcoal,

which means that it could only have lasted

for a few days or a few months.

We must consider that the date of August 24th,

which I've always considered accurate until today,

is no longer valid.

The eruption therefore must have taken place

on October 24th, which was the second hypothesis.

- [Interpreter] In any case, what is clear is

that coal in general does not last long,

so this inscription was written at most seven days

before the eruption of Vesuvius.

- [Interpreter] And that's a great discovery.

- [Interpreter] It's a great discovery.

- [Interpreter] The discovery.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Interpreter] I decided to take advantage

of the visit of the new Minister of Culture

to announce this great news to the press.

What fascinates me about archeology is

that discovering a simple inscription of charcoal

can lead us to rewrite history.

- [Interpreter] Hello, everyone,

I welcome the minister and thank him for being here.

Here is one of the most interesting discoveries we've made,

an inscription which will allow us to redate

to establish with certainty the date of the eruption.

Not the 24th of August, the commonly accepted date,

but as some have already thought and written, October 24th.

- [Interpreter] Five months have passed

since the beginning of the excavation.

I hope that one day, the results of our work

will be presented to the public.

For the moment, we have uncovered a street

and two important houses and made many discoveries.

In Jupiter's House, despite the looting,

we managed to find dishes,

mosaics never seen before in Pompeii, strange objects.

But who owned this house?

Restoring its appearance before the eruption could help.

- [Interpreter] We are sure that there was an upper floor.

Up there was a room with columns.

- [Interpreter] Thanks to the 3D reconstruction carried out

by (mumbles), our specialized architect,

we can now get an idea of the extraordinary interior

of this House of Jupiter.

On the other side of the street, the House of the Garden

has also been carefully reconstructed

using computer graphics.

(slow music)

We've understood that it was under construction

and we now know its different parts

and even the face of the mistress of the house.

We are also starting to get an idea

of the appearance of our two houses.

Though we know our street better,

so far only one victim has been found,

a man in his 40s whom we've called the fugitive.

He was trying to escape from the balcony of a house.

I hope that following the excavations,

we'll be able to make new discoveries.

(man screams)

Today, our excavation takes a new turn.

It was during a meeting with architect Annamaria Mauro,

responsible for the site safety project,

that I received a message from Valeria, the anthropologist.

Bones were found in a room of the House of the Garden.

This room seems to be a room overlooking the atrium.

The bones in the room seem to belong to several people.

The ribs of a small child

make the blood run cold in my veins.

The vertebrae of an adult.

Difficult to understand.

Who were they?

The scene is mysterious.

A new investigation is about to begin.

We decided to call this room the Room of the Skeletons.

Here is a skull that should be that of an adult.

And this one?

- [Interpreter] This one is a teenager.

- [Interpreter] Are these two different skulls?

- [Interpreter] Yes, apparently.

- [Interpreter] Theoretically, the layer should be intact

so our anthropologists should find us

whole skeletons, right?

- [Interpreter] At the moment, we have no traces

of articulated skeletons but we're still uncovering them.

- [Interpreter] What's this?

The elongated bone is part of?

- [Interpreter] This is a tibia.

- [Interpreter] It's a shin bone.

- [Interpreter] It probably belongs to an individual

of the same age as the one with this forehead.

- [Interpreter] And what's this?

- [Interpreter] Two other adult tibias.

- [Interpreter] What is glaring is

that unlike the other rooms,

where there is a lot of lapilli, here we did not find any.

So it seems that this room was protected

from the rain of lapilli.

- [Interpreter] So they took refuge here, hypothesis,

in this room because it was the last one with a roof,

without lapilli.

In contrast around here,

the lapilli reached two meters high.

But look at this, this is interesting.

- [Interpreter] There are lapilli.

- [Interpreter] Yes, so it was probably the collapse

of the roof that crushed them.

And I suppose the fall of the roof

also caused the skeletons to break apart.

- [Interpreter] To be sure, we much examine them.

Everything's possible.

- [Interpreter] Here we can see the power

of the pyroclastic flow.

Like a wave or a river, it found openings

and entered this house.

At one point, the pyroclastic flow broke the walls

of the Room of the Skeletons in which we are now.

It seems pretty obvious

since we found both walls collapsed inside.

These skeletons may tell us who the last inhabitants

of this house were.

They took refuge in this room

where we found very few lapilli,

which means that the roof held.

We found traces of the door too,

which means they were locked inside.

We hope that all these questions will find a complete answer

in future excavations.

- [Interpreter] By combining all the clues we have,

I'm starting to get an idea

of how the eruption could have started.

(rumbling)

(speaking in foreign language)

(screaming)

(speaking in foreign language)

(gentle music)

- [Interpreter] A woman, young, still with her wisdom tooth.

But no, not at all.

Her teeth were changing.

She's very small, in fact.

It's not a woman, it's a child.

It was a young boy.

- [Interpreter] Valeria also removes an adult's femur

from this niche that was probably a wardrobe.

- [Interpreter] Are they different people?

- [Interpreter] They're really two different people.

- [Interpreter] Too bad.

Everything's mixed up.

- [Interpreter] Probably, yes.

- [Interpreter] What a pity.

- [Interpreter] The bones are mixed up, but why?

Would the ceiling have collapsed at the end of the eruption,

scattering the bones?

The archeologists make hypotheses.

- [Interpreter] I saw several pieces

of broken timbers coming from the collapse of the ceiling.

Marco and I were wondering if it was possible to assume

that at a given moment,

which occurred sometime after the eruption,

the first floor collapsed, causing destruction

and dislocation of the bones you are finding.

- [Interpreter] Theoretically, it's possible.

However, there's something that doesn't fit

and makes me wonder.

Sometimes I find long bones of adults

which have been set aside out of the way.

We might think there was human intervention,

but only the excavations will clarify this situation.

What I really exclude is that the flow,

regardless of how powerful it was,

it could not have reduced the bodies to pieces

in this way, no.

- [Interpreter] We can at least exclude that.

- [Interpreter] Yes, I'd exclude it.

- [Interpreter] Looters may have excavated a tunnel

below the hardened layer of a pyroclastic flow

and could've mixed up the bones.

It's quite possible that all this has a connection

with the first excavations carried out

during the 18th century.

Here they entered very brutally,

destroying the wall and creating a kind of tunnel

in the pyroclastic flow.

Once inside, they realized there were at least five victims.

What does that mean?

That there was a large amount of loot there,

because with the victims

there had to be ornaments and jewels.

Women surely wore jewelry.

That's all they tried to retrieve.

(slow music)

- [Interpreter] They dug right up to here.

- [Interpreter] But how could they have been so,

what the hell were they thinking?

- [Interpreter] They're everywhere.

- [Interpreter] What they did is truly amazing.

Damn looters.

- [Interpreter] In classifying the bones,

I am trying to connect them

to determine which parts of which individuals

were moved around the room and how.

To understand how they were moved

and where they were originally.

- [Interpreter] At least we know

how many of them there were.

- [Interpreter] There were at least five,

but there could be 25.

- [Interpreter] But five for sure?

- [Interpreter] Five for sure.

- [Interpreter] This could have been

an extremely priceless site if it had been left intact.

- [Interpreter] It would have been wonderful.

- [Interpreter] It's a shame

this was the best preserved room.

- [Interpreter] It would have been great.

- [Interpreter] Because they were originally

in the pyroclastic flow.

- [Interpreter] Yes.

- [Interpreter] We could have taken plaster casts

of everything.

- [Interpreter] Despite the mix-up of bones,

we know there were at least five people in the room,

women and children.

We'll try to understand how these people died.

- [Interpreter] I wonder if they could be

from the same family,

which is probably the case.

I'm looking for similarities that seem clear to me,

but I can only be completely sure with a DNA test.

It's not a dead and buried population,

as we'd find in necropolises.

I'm not evaluating a population like that,

but a population that, and it's odd to say it, was alive.

(slow music)

- [Interpreter] As winter arrives,

a marvel has emerged from the safety work

on the neighboring street.

This painting is inspired by Greek mythology.

It represents Leda, wife of the King of Sparta.

Legend has it that Zeus took the form

of a swan to seduce her.

In the atrium of the House of Jupiter,

I think I recognize on the floor the mosaic representation

of a measuring tool, the agroma.

This was a kind of tool used by surveyors

and architects at the time to measure differences in level.

Could this be a clue to the person who built the house?

The excavation is not over.

I hope to understand the life of this neighborhood soon.

- [Interpreter] Keep going, keep going.

- [Interpreter] Careful, the moment has arrived.

Prasivm.

Caprasius, another candidate.

But in our street, above all,

we find the name of Lucius Celsus.

Sometimes also referred to by the name

of the family from which he descends, Albucius.

- Celsus is probably the same as Albucius,

whose inscriptions we found on the Street of Balconies.

It seems clear that in anticipation of the elections,

he plastered the street walls with electoral posters,

as we do today.

- [Interpreter] This kind of inscription could be considered

as invasive or non-respectful of the walls,

in particular on private dwellings.

This is why they were generally done at night.

Like the posters of our time,

certain paintings deliberately covered those

of other candidates.

(slow music)

This is our Albucius,

the one who lived in the House of the Silver Wedding.

He appears very often on this street.

One of the nobles of Pompeii

and therefore a great figure.

Perhaps the most important figure here,

who belongs to the most important family.

- [Interpreter] He used to pass through this street.

- [Interpreter] Of course, every time he left

the House of the Silver Wedding.

- [Interpreter] From the house to the forum.

- [Interpreter] And we arrive at Nolana Street, is that it?

- [Interpreter] So these are also the most recent?

- [Interpreter] Actually, it's the last election.

It's the last election before the eruption.

(speaking in foreign language)

Albutius was running for councilor,

the first step in a political career.

He must have been in his 30s.

(speaking in foreign language)

He was probably the sponsor of the inscriptions made

by the painters on the walls.

(speaking in foreign language)

We do know campaigns were sometimes paid for

or supported by other corporations or private individuals

who showed their support for a candidate.

(speaking in foreign language)

Albucius's family was influential.

His father was the owner of the House of the Silver Wedding.

According to researchers of the last century,

Albucius also lived in this magnificent house.

(slow music)

This huge villa was completely restored

during the archeological excavations of 1891.

It's here in the atrium where visitors could wait

if they wanted an interview with the owner.

Some took the opportunity to write graffiti on the walls,

a common practice at that time.

Some archeologists of the last century have found

several inscriptions that mention the name of Albucius.

These little engravings have undoubtedly disappeared

but I would still like to find traces of them.

No, there's nothing here.

There's a whole series of inscriptions

that have probably been written about him,

either with compliments or insults.

It's also an interesting story

for learning more about the customs of that time.

Here, it looks like an L with an S, that's for sure.

It would work well here because we have U, S.

Lucius Albucius.

It would work really well with a double S.

Once all the bones have been categorized

and all the skeletons have been reassembled,

Valeria can now estimate more precisely the number

of people who were trapped in the Room of the Skeletons.

- [Interpreter] An 11 year old boy,

another 10 to 11 year old boy,

another 18 year old individual,

a 40 to 60 year old woman,

another 30 to 40 year old woman, and several children.

So to summarize, at least two teenagers,

one eight to 10 year old, and another three year old,

a much smaller child whose age I cannot yet give,

and at least three adults.

A total of 10 people.

- [Interpreter] We asked Professor Caramelli

of the University of Florence to carry out a DNA analysis

of these bones, and against all odds,

it seems that there are few family ties

between these individuals.

A woman in her 30s is the mother

of one of the children found.

And a young girl under the age of 20

is identified with her baby.

One possible explanation would be that this room,

with a roof stronger than the others,

served as a shelter for several people trapped

during the eruption.

I imagine that men were able to go outside

and try and help other frightened people,

especially children.

(baby crying)

(speaking in foreign language)

Meanwhile, on the excavation,

archeologists have discovered part

of the intact pyroclastic flow in the Skeleton Room.

- [Interpreter] We are hopeful because this part

of the floor looks intact.

- [Interpreter] For once, there's good news.

For the first time, I have something connected

that looks like a hand.

I found it here and it seems to me to be in good condition.

What do you see?

- [Interpreter] A hand with a ring.

And you?

- [Interpreter] A hand with a ring.

- [Interpreter] This is great news.

- [Interpreter] You said that this part of the flow

was undisturbed.

- [Interpreter] Yes, I did.

- [Interpreter] Valeria has also discovered an arm

and a hand of the same person who had escaped the looters,

with his legs folded in a fetal position

at the moment of death.

- [Interpreter] A leg and a hand, that's what that is.

- [Interpreter] It's undoubtedly a woman,

but we can't know from just a hand.

The body swelled.

- [Interpreter] Soon they discover a skull

that has been crushed by the fall of a heavy tile.

- [Interpreter] Oh, this is exceptional.

- [Interpreter] Yes, truly impressive.

- [Interpreter] Yes, incredible.

- [Interpreter] The problem is, if I try to clean it,

I risk breaking it.

- [Interpreter] Let's leave it like that.

We can make an impression like that

and then remove the tiles.

What do you think?

- [Interpreter] Yes.

It's almost certain that these two legs belong

to the same individual.

While this other, with the skull next to its feet,

is another victim.

The ceiling broke the skull.

I don't know if this happened

at the time of the eruption or later.

In any case, this is the most likely cause of death.

- [Interpreter] But is it the same person?

- [Interpreter] Yes, absolutely.

These belong to the same person.

The legs are folded back on themselves,

but I don't know if she was folded up on the ground

or if she was simply crouching like me right now

and when the flow arrived, she was thrown to the ground.

These people were together.

They were all huddled together in the same room.

(rumbling)

(speaking in foreign language)

(children crying)

- [Interpreter] We've just found a void

behind the bedroom door.

Probably left by a decayed wooden element.

- [Interpreter] As we are dealing with the last moments

of these people's lives, the most important thing

for us now is to take a plaster cast of this cavity,

created by a wooden element,

because it's important to understand what happened.

But there is something bizarre about it.

It is perpendicular to the entrance

and it would seem it was placed in this position on purpose.

The plaster mold will help us

to properly understand its shape

because all we see here is a trace.

It might very well have been a piece of furniture

pushed against the door

to prevent the pumice stones from getting in.

- [Interpreter] Unfortunately, the plaster cast

does not allow us to identify the furniture pushed

in front of the door.

But it could have been a bed.

However, there is a trace left by a cloth.

Researcher Francesca Coletti takes a sample

to the laboratory to compare the print

with other fabrics found in Pompeii.

- [Interpreter] Oh, yes.

This kind of fabric is quite similar.

It is vegetable fiber indeed,

most likely linen which has been charred.

It is very interesting,

especially the passage of the thread here in the middle.

And so it is probably a seam,

which suggests that the object could be a bag.

A pillow, a bedspread.

In any case, this fabric, whatever it was,

had to be finished with side stitches.

(speaking in foreign language)

(slow music)

- [Interpreter] Spring 2019.

Almost a year has passed since the start of the excavation.

We can finally dismantle the roof found last summer

in the House of the Garden

and see what is hiding underneath.

- [Interpreter] T4.

It's long?

- [Interpreter] Each tile must be marked

and its position accurately registered

so it can be replaced at the end of the restoration work.

- [Interpreter] That goes to T5.

- [Interpreter] We're also removing

a beautiful lion-shaped gutter ornament.

Under the roof, there's a surprise.

We discover the kitchen of the House of the Garden intact.

There's a lararium, a small decorated domestic altar

intended for the lares,

the protective deities of the Roman family.

(mumbles) The architect and computer expert,

immediately creates a reconstruction

of its former appearance.

A wall with unfinished plastering, a stove,

and the toilets right next to it.

In the room opposite, we find the gutter,

which led the waste water

through the garden towards the street.

And a well.

In the room right next to the kitchen,

we found a family safe broken down

and covered by the pyroclastic flow.

Only the bronze elements remained.

We can recognize the round lock of the trunk.

Inside, there is a small treasure trove

of jewelry and amulets.

(slow music)

(thunder rumbling)

(rain pattering)

Today, the rain has given a big helping hand

to the archeologists in the House of Jupiter.

- [Interpreter] Holy rain!

So it's a bed.

A little bed.

There too, look.

- [Interpreter] There are two?

- [Interpreter] Here, here, and here.

This is the mattress.

- [Interpreter] It's the mattress?

Beautiful.

- [Interpreter] Thanks to the rain of the day before,

when we came back here this morning,

we could see something that we had only imagined

until yesterday.

The precise trace of two beds

located in the corner of this room.

- [Interpreter] A burnt bed in the house of Jupiter.

Would this be proof it was inhabited

at the time of the eruption?

Perhaps an oil lamp spilled during the panic.

But no skeleton was found in this house.

Did the owners escape in time?

- [Interpreter] Spectacular.

- [Interpreter] Thanks to 3D reconstruction,

we now have an idea of the interior

and exterior appearance of the two houses.

Near the House of the Silver Wedding,

at the end of the Street of Balconies,

we've identified a small square

in which there is a mysterious cavity.

- [Interpreter] Look, look.

- [Interpreter] Look, there is a vault here.

Do you see it?

- [Interpreter] Yes, it's beautiful.

- [Interpreter] It's incredible.

It's a space with an arch.

It could be a structure linked to the presence

of this water distributor.

- [Interpreter] For Teresa, who's responsible

for this part of the excavation,

this discovery's highly motivating.

She knows that if this vault is that of a system,

there must be a fountain just below

and that we're probably in a spot frequented by the public.

Were there shops in this small square?

We're on the same crossroads where we found the skeleton

of the fugitive a few months ago.

- [Interpreter] We're close to the end, right?

How long before we reach the vault?

- [Interpreter] We're almost there.

- [Interpreter] We must excavate carefully

to avoid the collapse of the vault.

(beeping)

It is indeed a partially open water tank,

as can be found in other places in Pompeii.

And the little square is taking shape.

On the corner of our Street of Balconies,

a shop is revealed.

Two masonry phalluses were used at the time

to bring good luck to the business.

In addition, we discovered

that the square was also under construction.

Finally, the public fountain has appeared.

It was new and had probably never been used,

connected to the water tank with water pipes

at the time still in place.

It's a very typical Pompeiian crossroads

with a fountain and the entire system of water supply

with public and private waters.

And there we have an elevated water tower

that was used to regulate the pressure of the water

and its distribution through different pipes.

On the one side, the fountain,

and on the other, Albucius's house

with its private thermal baths.

The house of the young politician Lucius Albucius,

the House of the Silver Wedding, also had running water.

And there are still pipes and taps in the garden

that are incredibly similar to those of our time.

Here, we really have very interesting vestiges.

There's a conduit that went around the garden

and there the entire system partly preserved

with all the lead and bronze structures

for the regulation of water.

There are also private thermal baths,

of which we can still see the double walls

where the steam circulated.

By going through this passage,

you arrive at the stable that opened up

onto the Street of Balconies.

And from there, you could head

to all the activities of daily life.

In the shop around the corner,

we'll finally understand what kind of business this was.

A counter appears with magnificent wine amphorae.

The shop turns out to be a thermopolium,

a Roman street-side tavern.

- [Interpreter] This is the moment, the moment.

It's the moment.

It's very touching.

Be careful.

(slow music)

- [Interpreter] We also find a shell

that must have been eaten a few days before the eruption.

- [Interpreter] It looks like a colander or a strainer

because I see the holes below.

What do you think?

- [Interpreter] A pan.

- [Interpreter] A small saucepan.

It's perhaps the first one that doesn't have...

- [Interpreter] Doesn't have what?

- [Interpreter] Doesn't have the base soldered on.

- [Interpreter] Great, fantastic.

- [Interpreter] The base is soldered with lead.

- [Interpreter] Perfect.

- [Interpreter] And it's the first one

with a handle like that, with a drill hole for hanging.

- [Interpreter] On the side

of the counter of the thermopolium, we found two frescoes.

One depicts the same counter with its amphorae,

and on the other, marine nymphs from Poseidon's cortege.

Nearby, another astonishing fresco has just been discovered,

probably on the wall of another thermopolium.

Oh, it's wonderful.

The blood, look!

- [Interpreter] Ah, yes, there's even blood.

- [Interpreter] We can only see part of the head

because you can see he's leaning.

- [Interpreter] And the other is standing behind him.

- [Interpreter] Oh, this is the winner here, yes.

(crowd cheering)

- [Interpreter] We haven't cleared everything

on the street yet, right?

- [Interpreter] Yes, we've excavated the whole area

and we're almost finished.

There's very little left for us to do.

- [Interpreter] There are no cobblestones here, seems to me.

- [Interpreter] Yes, they only go as far

as the House of Jupiter.

- [Interpreter] Oh, okay.

- [Interpreter] Don't forget that over there,

we have the stable of the House of the Silver Wedding,

where everything is in good condition.

But from here to there, it is under construction.

- [Interpreter] Is it under construction here too?

- [Interpreter] From there, you see,

from there, there are no cobblestones.

- [Interpreter] And that's the very well-preserved counter

with its frescoes.

- [Interpreter] And it was from up there

that our fugitive escaped.

- [Interpreter] The first victim.

- [Interpreter] Who was in fact also the owner.

- [Interpreter] Oh, you think so?

If Marco is right,

it's from the second floor of this house

that our fugitive would have fled.

Let's hypothesize.

The victim was found here.

He was there at the lapilli level.

He was carried away by the pyroclastic flow

and therefore maybe he fled from a balcony above the shop.

These structures, normally you have a second floor,

a mezzanine from which one could access the balcony,

and it would seem that it was from there that he fled.

Why not?

It's a possibility.

The thermopolium and its small square

would have been the meeting point of the neighborhood.

The customers of this tavern were poor

because they didn't have a kitchen at home.

The gladiator headquarters were not far away

and the construction works on the street

had brought in many workers.

So the place was popular,

which also explains the concentration

of political inscriptions in this stretch of the street.

As is the case today,

it's possible that politicians of that time liked to walk

and visit people as part of their campaign.

(speaking in foreign language)

Also, they often held free gladiator games for the people.

(speaking in foreign language)

The amphorae leaning against the counter seem new

and perfectly preserved.

They probably contained wine from the region.

Several influential families from Pompeii owned vineyards

on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

The last lapilli are removed from the crossroads

and the paving stones appear.

The street is finally completely clear.

We discovered that this brand new pavement stops

at the stable of the House of the Silver Wedding.

Albucius and his family could have paid

to have the section of street linking the stable

with the entrance of their house repaired first.

I finally know the life of this neighborhood

and I think I have all the clues

to understand what happened on the day of the eruption.

Here, we can imagine the hectic life

in a chaotic city in Southern Italy.

A city inhabited by almost 40,000 inhabitants,

where everything was changing all the time.

People were working, repairing water pipes,

renovating houses, rebuilding streets.

All of that helps us erase the image of a perfect city

where everything was intact at the time of the eruption.

(rumbling)

(dramatic music)

(coins clinking)

The lapilli rain started around 1:00 p.m.

And lasted until 6:00 a.m. the day after without stopping.

The streets of Pompeii were filled with pumice stones

at a rate of 15 centimeters per hour.

Some people had the foresight to leave the city.

Others decided to lock themselves up at home.

The roofs of some houses collapsed

under the weight of the stones.

(speaking in foreign language)

In the early morning,

as the layer of lapilli reached the second floor

of the houses, there was a lull.

Some people thought it was a good time to run away.

The streets covered by five meters

of lapilli were now unrecognizable.

(dramatic music)

(rumbling)

(man screams)

(speaking in foreign language)

(slow music)

- [Interpreter] Does it move?

- [Interpreter] I don't know.

This part's moving, don't know if the other one is.

It'll split in half.

- [Interpreter] I'm holding the other part.

It is still well-attached.

- [Interpreter] It is still well-attached up there too.

Can you free it on this side?

- [Interpreter] Yes.

I only move when you tell me to move.

I'll hold it, in case it cracks.

- [Interpreter] Yes, I'd say that it's suffered enough.

We're almost there.

Shall we try?

- [Interpreter] Yes.

(gentle music)

- [Interpreter] Everyone who worked near or far

on this excavation was deeply moved

by the drama that struck this neighborhood

and the city of Pompeii.

It was almost two millennia ago, October 24th, 79.

The inscription revealed by our excavation allows us

to be certain now.

This adventure will forever be etched in our memories.

Today, when I set foot in the Room of the Skeletons,

I relive the drama of these people.

The House of Jupiter fascinated me in many ways.

Its mosaics are unique

and will soon be presented to the public.

However, the mystery surrounding this villa still remains.

This is also the charm of our profession as archeologists.

You have to accept that you cannot answer all the questions.

In one year, we have only excavated

a few hundred square meters of land.

30% of the ancient city is still covered

by lapilli and vegetation and there are many wonders

to discover for future generations.

But for now, the work is finished

and the fragile perimeters of the city are safe.

Pompeii has regained its pride

and continues to share its stories

with people from all around the world.

(slow music)