All language subtitles for Pompeii - The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time

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Pompeii is one of the most iconic
monuments of the Roman world.

Millions of tourists come here
every year to see

the remains of this ancient city
destroyed by the volcano Vesuvius.

I'm Margaret Mountford.

I've always
been fascinated by ancient history,

and it doesn't get
much better than this.

What makes Pompeii so special
are these remarkable relics.

They're not statues.

'These are the remains of people
frozen in the last

'few seconds of their lives.'

This is like looking at people
who are asleep.

'Nothing like them has ever been
seen anywhere else.

'They are unique.'

That almost looks like the way
a boxer defends himself, doesn't it?

Everything here is
so well preserved, we know almost

every detail of what happened on
those days in August 79 AD.

The earthquakes.

The massive eruption.

The hail of ash, rock and pumice.

We even know the stories of many
of the people who perished.

But why they are fixed in these
extraordinary positions

had been a mystery for centuries.

Now it seems that vital clues
had been overlooked.

'Using new technology...'

Oh, that's really the person.
That's phenomenal.

'..and state-of-the-art
experiments...'

Wow, nobody would have survived
that, would they?

'..we are going to find out once
and for all why these people are

'caught in these strange positions.'

That's a beautiful image.
Look at that.

Eyes like a portrait.

And, for the first time ever, we are
going to do something extraordinary.

We are going to bring you
face to face with the two people

who died here 2,000 years ago.

That's amazing. That's just amazing.

Pompeii, southern Italy.

Over the last 265 years,
this fascinating city has slowly

been excavated from beneath
six metres of volcanic ash.

Archaeologists have rediscovered
a world frozen in time

nearly 2,000 years ago.

But this city's last great secret
is yet to be revealed.

How exactly did its population die

and why were their bodies
so beautifully preserved?

This is my first visit to Pompeii,
and showing me round the casts

is Paul Roberts.

He's head of the Roman Collections
at the British Museum.

The first stop in my investigations
is close to the walls of the city.

Beneath what is thought to have
been a livery stable

are the remains of three people.

These are the first casts I've seen,

and I was expecting to see
something like white marble statues.

This is like looking at people
who are asleep.

The amazing thing is, inside those
plaster casts are real people

who were walking around in Pompeii,
then running for their lives,

and then died here.

And we don't have casts like this
from anywhere else, do we?

Pompeii is unique in that respect,
in preserving the imprints,

the casts of the real people.

The figure in the centre is the
largest man ever found in Pompeii.

He has a far bigger build than
the average Roman.

This has led people to believe
he may have been a gladiator

brought here from Africa.

Most gladiators were slaves,

criminals or prisoners of war who
were forced to fight for a living.

On either side of this giant
are two other figures.

An adult male...

..and what is thought to be
a young boy.

These two casts were found together,
and many people believe

they are the remains of a father
and his son.

One story goes that the family ran
the livery stable

outside the city gates.

They would unload the carts that
came in from the surrounding

countryside and then distribute
the fresh produce around the city.

Life for children in Pompeii
was hard.

They were forced to work
alongside their parents,

as only the offspring of the wealthy
went to school.

One day, this young boy may have
taken over his father's job.

But this was not to be.

I find it quite difficult to
know actually how

I should be reacting to them,
because I do find it strange that

we're standing here
looking at these bodies.

It is a very strange sensation to
look at them, but I think if we try

and look through them,
to imagine looking through their eyes

and to see them as real people,
then that's not disrespectful at all.

That actually gives them back
a bit of the life that they once had.

I've visited lots of Roman sites,

but I've never seen plaster casts
of human bodies

like the ones they have here.

Normally the archaeologists find
bones lying in mud or under rocks,

but here the bodies left behind
these strange casts,

and I want to find what was
different here

and why those casts were
left behind.

To find out exactly what did happen
here nearly 2,000 years ago,

and to discover why whole bodies
were preserved,

we need to travel back in time
to the day of the eruption.

On the morning of August 24th,
79 AD, just before midday,

a powerful earthquake rocked
the quiet countryside

around the mountain.

LOUD RUMBLES

Then, at around one o'clock,
Vesuvius erupted.

A giant plug of dirt and rock which
had blocked the mouth of the volcano

was hurled into the air.

A huge cloud of ash and dust formed
high above the volcano.

The cloud was pushed nearly
14 kilometres into the atmosphere,

forced up by a powerful
column of gas and debris.

The cloud spread
across the sky like black ink.

It was so dense,
it blocked out the sun

and turned the sky
above Pompeii to night.

And then, came the downpour.

Only this wasn't rain.

It was a barrage of fine ash,

rock and lumps of solidified lava
known as pumice stone.

DOG WHINES

In less than an hour,

the eruption column had grown to
almost 32 kilometres high.

Every second, one-and-a-half million
tonnes of debris was pushed

high into the stratosphere.

And then fell back down on to
the beleaguered city below.

LOUD RUMBLING

Pompeii was buried under
a blanket of volcanic ash.

As panic ensued,
people tried to escape.

But far worse was to come.

Today, Pompeii is unlike any
other Roman ruin.

This is a city frozen in time.

It offers us an unrivalled insight
into life in the ancient world.

But it also lets us

see the very people who once walked
these cobbled streets.

These remains are not just
exhibits in a museum.

They are loaded with clues which can
help forensic scientists

discover how these people
actually died.

One thing is certain,
it wasn't lava.

At temperatures up to 1,200 degrees,

molten lava leaves little
or no human remains.

So if the culprit wasn't lava,
what else could it have been?

And why are the bodies of the dead
in such strange positions?

This one is sitting with his hands
covering his face.

This one is pushing himself
up off the ground.

And this one seems to have just
fallen asleep.

It's as if time stopped
and the people froze.

PEOPLE SCREAM

For decades, it was thought that
the ash that fell like rain

on the city of Pompeii was also
responsible for killing its people.

With the air thick with ash
and debris,

it was assumed that the people
suffocated.

And the main reason for that

is down to one of the most famous
casts in Pompeii.

This man's remains were
found near the body of a mule,

and so he's been named the Muleteer.

Muleteers held one of the lowest
social positions,

but they were vital for transporting
goods around the city.

They knew the narrow streets
of Pompeii better than anybody.

But this knowledge didn't help him
escape on the day of the eruption.

His remains now
sit in Pompeii's granary.

This crouching figure,
his hands raised to his face,

was taken as proof
the people of Pompeii were

suffocated by the ash
raining down from Vesuvius.

'But Dr Peter Baxter
from Cambridge University thinks

'the Muleteer's pose has been
misinterpreted.'

Peter, this is one of the most
famous casts here, isn't it?

People used to think that this
position showed that

this individual had choked to death
or been asphyxiated by ash.

What does the posture tell us?

Well, when the early
archaeologists saw this cast,

they automatically jumped to the
conclusion that the victim's died

as a result of the heavy ash
fall from the volcano,

and that they very quickly got
covered and buried in ash

and suffocated in the ash fall.

So the hands were protecting
the nose?

The hands were, in effect,
protecting the mouth from breathing

in the ash coming
down in the air around them.

So people used to think that this
individual had asphyxiated,

had choked to death.

Is this the kind of posture someone
would have if that happened to them?

It's unlikely.

They're more likely to be
unconscious on the ground,

rather than crouching like this.

So if the people here didn't
suffocate on the ash,

and weren't consumed by lava,
what did kill them

and fix their bodies in these
strange positions?

To solve this mystery, scientists
had to look beyond Pompeii

to another town that was also
destroyed by the volcano Vesuvius.

Six kilometres from the volcano
sits Herculaneum.

Until the 18th century,

this town lay hidden
under 20 metres of volcanic debris.

It was only rediscovered

when a farmer digging
a well on his property

struck the remains
of a marble building.

Herculaneum was much smaller
than Pompeii.

Home to around 5,000 people.

But its population
was far wealthier.

Herculaneum was once
an exclusive holiday resort,

where Rome's rich and powerful
relaxed in absolute comfort,

their needs catered
to by an army of slaves.

But all that wealth
and influence couldn't protect them

from the disaster that
was about to unfold.

Herculaneum is much closer
to Vesuvius than Pompeii is,

so the people felt the force of the
earthquake and eruption

far more strongly.

SCREAMING

They must have watched in horror

as a vast cloud of debris
shot into the air...

..and then run for their lives.

When excavators first began
to uncover Herculaneum,

they were surprised by how few
human remains were found

compared to the many hundreds
uncovered in Pompeii.

They assumed that the
population had escaped,

but then, in the 1980s,

archaeologists turned their
attention to a series of boat sheds

that once lined the beach.

Dr Pier Paolo Petrone
is an anthropologist

who excavated three
of these boat sheds.

Here are the victims.

Gosh, that's horrific.

So how many people were
found in here?

So they'd run here to escape?

The people thought the boat sheds
would keep them safe.

But instead,
they became their tombs.

And what first struck
you about these bones?

And it looks as if it's been cut,
it's so sharp. Yes.

The brains had burst
out of the skull?

These skeletons look very different
from the body casts in Pompeii.

It seems that whatever happened here

was the result of a force
so hot it reduced these poor people

to a scorched pile of bones.

And yet, just like Pompeii,

lava was never found in Herculaneum.

So why did the same eruption reduce
people to skeletons in one place,

and yet preserve whole bodies
just a few kilometres away?

'I want to take a closer look
at the volcano

'at the heart of this catastrophe -
Vesuvius.'

This is the top of Vesuvius.

It's very hard,
looking around here,

to think that this mountain
caused all that damage.

But this sleeping giant
wasn't always so peaceful.

When this volcano erupted
nearly 2,000 years ago,

it did so in a way that had
never been recorded before.

Instead of throwing out lava,

it somehow created a wave of intense
heat that was strong enough

to kill people
11 kilometres away.

So what did happen here? And
why was this eruption so different?

Although much of the evidence has
been lost in the mists of time,

there was a witness
to the disaster.

'A Roman whom we call
Pliny the Younger

'was staying across
the Bay of Naples from Vesuvius

'when it erupted.'

He wrote down what he saw,

and, 2,000 years later,

his words still hold clues
to the events of that day.

12 hours after the initial eruption,

Vesuvius was still spewing
millions of tonnes of ash

and debris into the atmosphere.

Pliny then described
something very unusual.

He wrote that a great
mass of material broke away

from the eruption column and flowed
down the sides of the volcano.

The fast-moving avalanche of gas
and dust spread out across the land

and covered everything in its path.

Pliny's words were disregarded
for centuries,

thought to be the product of an
overactive imagination.

But then, in the 1980s,
a volcano erupted in North America

and people saw for themselves
that Pliny hadn't been exaggerating.

Mount St Helens National Park has some

of the most breathtaking
scenery in the USA.

But on Sunday, May 18th, 1980,

this peaceful world was transformed

when the Mount St Helens
volcano erupted.

For nine hours, a vertical eruption
column over 24 kilometres high

spread half a billion tonnes of
ash and debris across three states.

When it fell to Earth,

it covered everything
within 600 kilometres in a fine ash.

Vulcanologists
had seen eruptions before,

but this was the first time they
had managed to capture on film

the spectacular phenomenon.

If you look at the footage
carefully,

you can see that the whole north
face of Mount St Helens collapses.

As it does, it releases a searing
hot avalanche of gas and dust

that explodes
down the sides of the mountain.

This is called
a pyroclastic current.

Temperatures inside this
tidal wave of gas and debris

measured 700 degrees Celsius.

The turbulent
wave of superheated gas

travelled at nearly
130 kilometres an hour.

It destroyed everything in its path
within seconds.

You can see the devastation
caused by the pyroclastic current

over ten kilometres
from the mouth of the volcano.

Brittany Brand is a vulcanologist

who has made an in-depth
study of the explosive eruption.

She thinks that what
happened in North America

holds vital clues to what happened
here in Italy nearly 2,000 years ago.

Could you explain what
a pyroclastic current is?

A pyroclastic current is an avalanche
of searing hot gas, ash and rock

that travels down
the slopes of a volcano

at hundreds of kilometres an hour.

It's impossible to
outrun and absolutely deadly.

When I think of an eruption,

I think of streams of lava
coming down a mountain.

Well, the style of eruption,

whether a volcano will erupt lava

or if it were to erupt explosively,

is primarily a function of
how much gas is in the magma.

If there is no gas in the magma,

then the magma will erupt as
a lava flow or a lava dome.

And that is the actual magma, the
liquefied rock that's coming out?

Exactly.

And in an explosive eruption,
the difference is the magma

has gas bubbles, and as the gas
in the magma makes its way

to the surface, the gas bubbles get
bigger and bigger and bigger,

to the point where,
when the volcano erupts,

the gases just expand very quickly,

and it rips the magma apart into very
tiny pieces,

which are your ash and your pumice.
I see.

So it's still the same...

The pumice and the tiny rocks are still
the stuff that would be lava. Yeah.

It's just the gas has split them up.
Exactly.

The pumice, the ash, they're all
bits and pieces of the magma.

If there is no gas,
it would erupt as a lava flow,

but because there is gas, it was
pulverised in an explosive eruption.

From what scientists
witnessed at Mount St Helens,

and data gathered from other
volcanic eruptions,

it's now possible to piece together

exactly what happened
when Vesuvius erupted.

12 hours after the initial eruption,

Vesuvius was still forcing millions of
tonnes of volcanic debris into the air.

Both Pompeii and Herculaneum
were drowning

under a thick
blanket of ash and pumice.

The people in Herculaneum
took refuge in the boat sheds.

But the ash fall was nothing
compared to what was to come.

The eruption column stretched
nearly 32 kilometres high.

Under its own weight,
it was beginning to weaken.

And at around 2am,
part of the column collapsed.

The collapsing column sent
a pyroclastic current

surging down the sides
of the volcano...

A turbulent avalanche of superheated
gas and dust

travelling at hurricane speeds.

Temperatures inside the explosive
blast were over 500 degrees Celsius.

The wave of searing hot gas and ash

took less than five minutes
to strike Herculaneum.

The people sheltering in the boat
sheds had no idea

what was about to happen.

The intense heat surge
killed them instantly.

It vaporised their flesh,

and the pressure from inside caused
their skulls to burst open.

And that is why all that remained
of the people in the boat sheds

were blackened skeletons
and cracked skulls.

The people in Pompeii were
unaware of the horror

raked on their neighbours
because the pyroclastic current

ran out of energy
before reaching the city walls.

For the moment,
it seemed that they were safe.

But they would not escape.

They would be left not as bones,

but as bodies captured
in their final moments.

Remarkably,
despite years of research,

there are still clues in Pompeii
that were overlooked.

This is the Macellum.

It was once Pompeii's
bustling marketplace,

a lively and sometimes
smelly focal point

for the city's 20,000 inhabitants.

It's now the final resting place
of two people killed by Vesuvius.

For years, people thought that
this woman had her arms raised

because she was trying to protect
herself against an attacker.

But recently forensic scientists
have reanalysed her strange posture,

and they now think it holds
vital information

about how the people
in Pompeii died.

Peter, does this cast give us
any clues

as to how this person died?

Yes. This attitude is very typical
of someone who has been exposed

to extreme heat
at the moment of death.

It appears as if the individual
is protecting themselves

while lifting their arms
up in that way,

but it is also very characteristic
of the effects of intense heat,

when they are enveloped in the cloud
of very hot ash and gases.

That almost looks like the way
a boxer defends himself, doesn't it?

Yes, it's called the pugilistic
attitude by pathologists,

because when people are caught
and die and fires,

they can adopt this posture,
causing the muscles

to coagulate and shorten

so that the limbs flex
and adopt this shape,

and then this posture becomes
fixed at the time of death.

It's very hard to overcome.

So this isn't just characteristic
of death from a volcanic eruption,

it's death from heat?

We see this whenever anyone
dies from extreme heat.

So if this person did
die from exposure to intense heat,

there must have been more
than one pyroclastic current.

And one of them must have reached
the city of Pompeii.

But why are the remains in Pompeii

so different from the remains
at Herculaneum?

The reason is
simply down to distance.

Pompeii is five kilometres further
from Vesuvius than Herculaneum is.

So as the wave of heat travelled
the extra kilometres,

it cooled from 500 degrees
to around 300 degrees.

This was still hot enough
to kill the people instantly,

but not hot enough
to vaporise their flesh.

But this theory raises
another question.

If you look closely
at the casts in Pompeii,

you can still see the imprint
of the clothes

that people were wearing
on the day they died.

So if the people were struck by a
wave of gas over 300 degrees Celsius,

why wasn't their clothing destroyed?

To find out,
I've come to Edinburgh.

Here at the university
they have a machine

that is capable of recreating a
pyroclastic current in the laboratory.

Helping us is fire safety engineer
Dr Luke Bisby.

Luke, you know we've got
this puzzle at Pompeii,

because what seems to have happened
is that the people were killed

by the heat. But their clothing
has remained intact,

so we can still see the sandals,
we can still see the clothes.

How can that have happened?

One of the reasons we're trying
to run this test is to simulate

the conditions of what happened
to try to understand

how it is that the temperature could
have been sufficiently high

to effectively kill the people
instantaneously,

and yet the clothing wasn't burned.

So, Luke, what does this machine do?

It's a piece of equipment called
a fire propagation apparatus.

Basically, we place the sample inside
this quartz tube on a table

down inside the machine,

and we use these very high-powered
infrared lamps

to impose heat that we can supply to
the sample in a very controlled way.

The sample fabric we are using
is a type of boiled wool.

It's thought to be very similar
to the type of material

worn by the population of Pompeii.

We're wrapping the wool
around pieces of pork

to replicate the human flesh
beneath the cloth.

So we are going to stimulate
what it would have been like

for a person being hit by that
surge? That's right.

What we're trying to do here is
simulate a pyroclastic surge

moving down the side of the
volcano and over Pompeii

at a velocity of about
40 miles an hour,

at a gas temperature of about
300 degrees Celsius.

OK, well, let's see what happens.

The light given off by this machine
is powerful enough to blind,

so before it fires up
I've got to put on safety glasses.

We're going to heat
the sample for 150 seconds.

Experts think this is the length
of time the people of Pompeii

were exposed
to the pyroclastic current.

Right, so let's have a
look inside our sample here.

The cloth is a bit charred,
isn't it?

Yeah, there's some slight
discolouration

and charring of the cloth,

but, as you can see, it's still
very much intact.

These are predominantly edge effects
due to contact with the foil.

In any case, it's really the centre
that we're more interested in,

and you can see the cloth there is
very well intact. That's phenomenal.

And underneath,
we have the pork flesh.

I'll just take it
out of the foil here,

and you can see there is some
slight discolouration

and drying to the top of the pork,
so it's definitely been heated.

I'll just cut into it here

and see if we can see
any discolouration.

There is some clear discolouration
at the surface here,

although not to a very
significant depth.

You can see that the pork at the top
is actually cooked,

despite the fact that we don't have
any damage to the woollen cloth.

So what temperature would the flesh
have got to, to turn out like that?

I expect the flesh here got
to between 200-250 Celsius. Wow.

Nobody would have survived that,
would they?

I think it's probably unlikely.

It used to be thought that
the victims at Pompeii

must have suffocated, because
if they'd been killed by heat

then their clothing
would have been destroyed.

But this experiment has shown that
a wave of heat at 300 degrees

will leave the clothing intact.

By bringing all the evidence
together -

the charred and burned skeletons
in Herculaneum,

evidence from Mount St Helens,

the contorted poses of the body
cast in Pompeii,

and the result of the cloth
test in Edinburgh -

it's now possible for the very
first time to piece together

the unique sequence of events
that played out

when Vesuvius erupted,

and to reveal exactly how the
people in Pompeii died

and why their bodies
were frozen in time.

At 1am on the second day
of the eruption,

the people sheltering in Herculaneum
had just seconds to live.

They were killed by the
first pyroclastic current.

The people in Pompeii were
oblivious to the death

and destruction because the first
wave of superheated gas

ran out of energy
far from the city walls.

But the eruption was far from over.

As time passed,
the column continued to weaken.

At 2am, it collapsed again.

The second pyroclastic current
thundered down the sides of the volcano,

closely followed by a third.

Each surge grew in strength and
pushed further and further out,

closer and closer
to the city of Pompeii.

At around dawn,
the shower of ash and debris

falling onto Pompeii began to ease.

Many people who had fled the city

returned to collect their money
and valuables,

thinking that the worst was over.

But this was a cruel deception.

At around 7.30am, the column
above Vesuvius collapsed again.

A fourth pyroclastic current surged
down the sides of the volcano.

The gas and debris
raced over the ground.

This time, it did reach Pompeii.

So now we know the people of Pompeii
didn't suffocate on the ash.

They weren't consumed by lava.

They were struck down
by a wave of intense heat.

By the time the eruption was over,

Vesuvius had produced
six pyroclastic currents.

Over time, the ash that covered
the bodies hardened,

encasing each of the dead
in a solid outer shell.

As the remaining flesh
inside the shell decomposed,

it left behind a cavity,

a perfect mould of each victim's
final position.

And this allowed archaeologists
to do something extraordinary.

When they pumped plaster
into the cavities,

they created
these fascinating casts

unlike anything that has been
seen before or since.

The ash that covered the dead
was so fine,

it preserved details of their faces
and the clothes they wore,

and, 2,000 years later,

it has provided us with the clues
to how the people died.

I wonder what it was like when
the first human cast was produced.

It must have been pretty
nerve-racking,

chipping away that rock to see
what they would find,

but incredibly exciting
when the whole human shape appeared.

These casts are the
real treasures of Pompeii.

They're closely guarded
and incredibly fragile,

but, for the very first time,

the authorities have given permission
to peer beneath the plaster.

Using state of the art digital
X-ray technology,

we want to recreate the face of a
person who died on that fateful day.

The cast we have chosen
rests inside Pompeii's granary.

We want to X-ray this cast

because the plaster encasing
the skull is extremely thin.

Although this is one of the first
casts ever created,

very little is known about
who this person once was.

We think it was a male,
because of the large build.

But what he did for a living
remains a mystery.

We call him The Anonymous Man,
because we know so little about him.

But can we find out
what he looked like?

To recreate this man's face,
we've enlisted Richard Neave.

He's an expert on anatomical
facial reconstruction.

Tell me, how do you work?
What are you going to do?

Because of the limitations on how
we can handle this material,

if we can get X-rays of the skull
from the front and the side,

then from that information
I can rebuild a skull.

And you can actually then put flesh
on the bones? Effectively, yes.

It's a wonderful challenge.
It's not been done before.

So are you excited at the idea
of doing it? Oh, yes, I am indeed.

It's all in the bone. It's all
information in that skull. Mm-hm.

'Because the skull
is encased in plaster,

'we need to use a digital
X-ray machine to see through it.

'And as a safety precaution,
we have to wear lead vests

'and cordon off the area
from the public.

'Helping us
is X-ray technician Steyn Loeke.'

OK, so we're going to do
the left lateral...

'The handheld X-ray machine sends
images directly to a monitor

'where Richard and I can view them.'

Bingo! Look! Wow! Gosh!

Ha-ha! I had no idea that there'd
be a whole skull in there.

I find that amazing, actually.

Look at that. It's like a portrait.

I'm hoping that Steyn is going to be
able to do some magic so that we

can actually see the angle of the
jaw, which I think is just there,

because it's a whopping great big
square one. Yep.

It's a very masculine sort of skull,
that. Absolutely. Very strong.

It never ceases to amaze me.
That's the expert eye, I think.

'At first, the X-ray machine
produces images that are grainy

'and difficult to read.

'But we soon start to get pictures
that Richard can use.'

Oh, wow!

It's surprising, isn't it,
when you look at it like this?

Just how much...you really can...see.

That's the edge of the skull there.
Yes. There's the front of the skull.

Beautifully shown.
There's the frontal sinus here.

That's the roof of the orbit
down there.

The roof of the eye socket. Mm-hm.

There's the nose, the floor of
the mouth, the palate. Hard palate.

And our teeth.

Upper and lower teeth.

So is this good enough to create
a reconstruction from?

Well, with the other views,
yes, we can...

From this,
we can then create a skull.

And having done that, we can create
the face and the skull we've made.

Well, we've spent nearly all day
taking X-rays of casts.

It's much more difficult than
I thought it would be,

but I think finally we've
actually got somewhere.

We've got a series of X-rays Richard
can work from. And that's great.

Two, three.

'It's incredible to think that
something as destructive

'as a volcanic eruption could help
preserve such fragile remains.

'The reconstruction team have also
been given access to another

'victim of Vesuvius, this
time from the town of Herculaneum.

'Even though the massive heat surge
stripped the people of all

'traces of their identity,
it is possible

'to recreate the face of one of
these individuals because

'every skull holds detailed information
about how a person looked.

'To reconstruct a face, we have been
given unprecedented access to

'the skull of a young woman who
died in one of the boat sheds.

'She's known as the Bella Donna.

'She's thought to have been a
wealthy inhabitant of Herculaneum,

'a woman who lived a life of luxury
and pleasure.

'A life cut all too short.'

I'm holding a 2,000-year-old skull.

This is supposed to be a woman's
skull, and she's called Bella Donna,

the beautiful woman.

I wonder if we can tell that,
or if you can tell that.

Now, we can see from this that it has
the features that one would

associate with a female skull.
You have big eye sockets, big orbits.

And it's very symmetrical,

and one tends to associate
beauty with symmetry.

With regular features.
Regular features, yes.

Well, I shall put this on here.
Nicely in the centre.

OK, let's start this up.

'To recreate the Bella Donna's face,

'we first need to make
a complete scan of her skull.

'This machine will map the skull
in the most exquisite detail.

'And from this, we can print out
an exact three-dimensional copy.'

So now you can see on the screen
already, the 3D object.

It's like a real object coming
out of nothing. Exactly.

'Richard will then use the 3D copy
as a foundation from which to

'build the face of this woman.'

I know this is the skull of someone
who lived here 2,000 years ago,

and yet I find it very hard
to relate that

and the fact that she died in the
eruption of Vesuvius to a skull

that I'm holding in my hands now.
It doesn't feel real to me.

'My time in Pompeii is now
coming to an end

'and it's been a fascinating
experience.

'I'm hoping that Richard will be
able to use his skill and knowledge

'to show us the faces of two people
who died in this terrible tragedy.

'For the last two months,

'Richard Neave has been hard at work
in his studio in England.

'Using measurements taken from the
X-rays and 3D scans,

'he's built skulls for both the
Bella Donna and the Anonymous Man.

'And he's now starting to put
flesh on the bones.

'Slowly, layer upon layer of muscle
and soft tissue is built up.

'Once the eyes are in place,
the faces take shape.'

It's no longer just a blank skull
staring at you.

This is going to be more
and more familiar as time goes by.

'It's now winter, and Richard
and I are back in Italy.

'Both the reconstructions are
finished, and I'm looking forward to

'coming face to face with two people
who lived here 2,000 years ago.

'The first is the Bella Donna.

'This young woman is thought to have been
one of Herculaneum's wealthier citizens.

'She died cowering
in one of the boat sheds.'

EXPLOSION

'We have brought her reconstruction
to the town where

'she once lived, Herculaneum.'

Right, so this is the Bella Donna.
This is the Bella Donna.

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing
what you've made.

Yes, well, you've only seen
a skull of her before.

So...this is what we've got.

It's a person.
She's actually got character.

It's so real.
That's all I can say. So real.

To think of the skull...
You were holding the skull, yes.

While I was holding the skull,
I couldn't imagine a person,

and now I see her, I find it
difficult to relate her face

to the skull, but that's because
she's alive and the skull isn't.

No.

She's called the Bella Donna. Yes.
And I think she is beautiful.

Whether she'd have been
a showstopper... Difficult to know.

I suspect she could well
have been in her day.

So do you think they'll still
call her the Bella Donna?

I expect so, yes.

I certainly became quite attached
to her, I have to say.

She's not yours now, you know!
She's not mine now, no, no. No.

I find it very hard

when looking at all those skeletons
in the boathouses to think these

were all individuals, but looking
at her and thinking her skull was

among those, she was an individual
and of course, they all were.

It brings it much more to life,
somehow, what happened.

'This young woman once walked along
the narrow streets of Herculaneum.

'She may even have worshipped
here in this temple.

'I think it's remarkable that
Richard has been able to breathe

'life into something
that was just a skull.

'The second face Richard has
reconstructed is of the man

'who now lies in Pompeii's granary.

'We called this cast the
Anonymous Man, as no clues as to who

'he was or what he did for a living
were ever found on his body.

'But we do have some idea
of how and when he died.

'We think this man managed to live
through 12 hours of the eruption.

'He may have escaped the worst
of the ash fall

'by hiding inside his home.

'At around dawn on August 25th,
he tried to flee the city.

'But he didn't get far.'

EXPLOSION

'At around 7.30 in the morning,

'he was engulfed by the fourth
pyroclastic current.

'It killed him instantly.

'We have brought his reconstruction
to where his body cast now rests,

'Pompeii's granary.

'I wonder what face Richard has been
able to put on this mysterious figure.'

This is what I've been waiting for.
Here we are.

Right. Let's see
what you've made.

There he is, Margaret.

That's amazing!
That's just amazing!

Not what you were expecting.
Not what I was expecting at all.

And I think it...looks so real,

so human and...so much...what would
be more lifelike, but so alive,

and thinking that that actually
is what the person

whose bones are inside that plaster,

but it doesn't seem to me
really like a real person,

whereas when I see what you've made
here, the person comes alive.

You can imagine him living here and
walking up and down these streets.

Here at Pompeii, archaeologists have
concentrated on the buildings,

the artefacts, the wall paintings,

all those things left in the
physical record, because we haven't

got them left anywhere else, but of
course, it was a time for people,

and people lived here and these
are the people who died here.

It's extraordinary
looking into that man's eyes.

He seems so human,
he's almost alive.

And he was just an ordinary
man who lived here,

but he died in the most
extraordinary way.

And looking at him,
you wonder what can it have

been like for the people who were
caught in that eruption?

It must have been
indescribably awful.

I still think it's intrusive,

standing so close to these casts
and looking at them.

But they are remarkable.

They don't just put a human
face on the tragedy here,

they've helped to explain
how the people actually died.

Pompeii has wonderful buildings,
baths, theatres,

but what makes it special
is the story of the people

and how their lives were brought to
such a dramatic and horrific end.

Pompeii still sits in the shadow
of the giant Vesuvius.

It's erupted over 50 times
since this city was destroyed.

The last time, in 1944,

half a metre of ash
fell on to its ancient streets.

Vesuvius is still alive.

Still smouldering.

And who knows what the
future may bring?

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