Decapitated Pompeii victim discovered

[Angela]

See:
https://www.thelocal.it/20180529/pompeii-archaeologists-skeleton-disabled-eruption-victim



"The victim appears to have died after being hit and decapitated by a 300-kilogram rock, sent hurtling towards him by the force of the volcanic flows. The remains of his skull have not yet been found.The first analyses of his remains show he was aged over 30, with signs of a bone infection in the leg. He probably had difficulties walking, according to the site's superintendent Massimo Osanna, and therefore wasn't able to flee the 79 AD eruption quickly enough. "

Well, it's a particularly gruesome way to die, but it wouldn't have mattered in the long run how quickly he could run.

'As they were moving the skeleton to a laboratory for tests, archaeologists spotted the remains of a leather purse lying underneath the man which was found to contain coins and what they believe to be his house key.


The 20 pieces of silver, worth the equivalent of roughly €500 today, were presumably what the man was able to grab as he prepared to flee, leading experts to speculate that he was probably a middle-income merchant."

"Last week a house with spectacular colourful frescoes was uncovered, and in mid-May, archaeologists were able to cast the complete figure of a horse for the first time ever at the site. Along with a pig and a dog, it is one of the few animals of any species to be successfully cast at Pompeii.
And a month before that, an excavation uncovered the complete skeleton of a young child in a bathhouse long thought to have been fully excavated. That find was the first time a complete skeleton has been discovered at Pompeii in some 20 years, and the first time a child's remains have come to light in around half a century."

I thought it was all excavated, but I guess not.

 

[exceededminimumso..]

"Achoo! Hoc est occidere me cinereTHUD"

 

[Jovialis]

Update to the story:

They found his skull

NAPLES, ITALY—The New York Times reports that archaeologists have recovered the intact skull and upper body bones of the man whose lower skeleton was found protruding from a large rock door jamb at Pompeii last month. It had been assumed that the rock sitting on his upper body had crushed him to death during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Further excavation has revealed that his lower body had been merely separated from his upper body, which was found about three feet directly below the rest of his remains. This may have happened sometime between 1748 and 1815, when early archaeologists digging tunnels at the site could have caused a collapse in the ash. “Our new hypothesis is that he died from asphyxiation from the pyroclastic flow,” said Massimo Osanna, director of Pompeii Archaeological Park. The walls of the nearby building may have collapsed on the body during the eruption or sometime later. The excavation has also uncovered a small sack containing an iron key, about 20 silver coins, and two bronze coins. For more on recent discoveries at the site, go to “Pompeii Revisited.”

https://www.archaeology.org/news/6760-180629-pompeii-intact-skull

 

[Angela]

Update to the story:

They found his skull

It was a horrible ending any which way, but I must say this is a "better" ending than being decapitated by a flying boulder.

 

[Jovialis]

It was a horrible ending any which way, but I must say this is a "better" ending than being decapitated by a flying boulder.

I second that.