Pompeii victims died in 'extreme agony,' 2 newfound skeletons reveal

Archaeologists have found the skeletal remains of a woman and a man who died when the volcanic plumes of Mount Vesuvius wiped out the city of Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago. 

The findings provide a glimpse of the final moments of the people who attempted to escape the ancient Roman city, the archaeologists said.

Pompeii was an exuberant resort city south of modern-day Naples. The city sat about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from Mount Vesuvius, which is still considered an active volcano today. Scholars estimate that around 10,000 to 20,000 people inhabited the city when the volcano famously erupted in A.D. 79 and that 2,000 likely died from the pyroclastic flow — hot volcanic gas, lava and ash — within 20 minutes of contact. 

Details of the recent discovery of the two victims were published Monday (Aug. 12) in the E-Journal Scavi di Pompei (Pompeii Excavations). 

"Even after two millennia, we encounter the suffering and anguish of the people who perished, and it is our duty to address these with sensitivity and precision," Gabriel Zuchtriegel, an archaeologist and director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said in a translated video. 

Archaeologists found the skeletal remains in a 9-by-11.5-foot (2.8 by 3.5 meters) room in a house that they began excavating in 2023. Despite the relatively small area, the excavation was complex, Zuchtriegel and his team wrote in the translated article. Because the skeletons and objects were very delicate, the task "necessitated meticulous microscale excavation and removal work," they wrote in the study.

Related: Evidence of more than 200 survivors of Mount Vesuvius eruption discovered in ancient Roman records