Archaeologists were taken aback after they discovered a 2,000-year-old mysterious find in a basement in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.
Mount Vesuvius, a stratovolcano in modern Italy, erupted in 79 AD in one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions, spreading a cloud of superheated tephra and gases to a height of 33 kilometers.
This natural disaster threw molten rock, crushed pumice and hot ash at a rate of 1.5 million tons per second, destroying Roman settlements and burying thousands of people under burning debris.
More than 2,000 years later, experts are still piecing together the remains, including those found in what became known as Room 10.
This house was discovered in the eighties with a group of bodies hung with jewels next to another body that was completely devoid of any belongings.
Experts are examining a 2,000-year-old crime scene in the city, a basement full of bodies. But, even after decades of excavation, secrets still emerge from the ashes.
The most mysterious scene is inside the basement, where the bodies of two different groups of people were found.
Those at the far end of the room had almost no belongings. But the group of people closest to the door was laden with riches.
Archaeologist Dr. Christina Kilgrove shared her first thoughts on the find. She said: “There were a lot of coins, a lot of jewelry, and they did not find that many artifacts in the second group.
This has led some to speculate that they may have been two different social classes of people.
The bizarre division of wealth has led some archaeologists to argue that the crime was committed just moments before the disaster.
Dr. Giuseppe Scarpati said: “Some of the people who took refuge in room 10 may have been thieves or looters.
Archaeologists believe they may have solved the mystery by finding a safe that could have been looted when the disaster struck.
Dr. Kilgrove: “The archaeologists found a very large, sturdy box that they believe belonged to the owner of this large, wealthy home, and it is possible that this man was found in room 10 as one of the skeletons. This ornate safe was a Roman version of the modern system. home security.
This safe featured a four-stage locking mechanism to protect any wealth inside. It was so well made that it took a full blown natural disaster to break its defenses. But evidence from Pompeii suggests that crime raged throughout the city in anticipation of the devastating eruption.
When Mount Vesuvius exploded in the first century, it released 100,000 times more thermal energy than the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The eruption killed more than 1,000 people, but the exact number is unknown.
Since then, Vesuvius has erupted many times, with its last arrival in 1944, making it the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted over the past 100 years.
Today it is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world due to the population of three million people living nearby.
