Almost 2,000 years ago a man died with a mysterious case while fleeing Pompeii. We finally know his secret

Get in the situation. It’s any day of any month and you are at home doing something when suddenly you hear screams in the street. You look out the window and see people running away in terror. Not only that. In the distance you see how the ash and burning rock rise from a volcano that both you and the rest of your neighbors thought were immersed in unalterable lethargy. What would you do in the face of such a scenario? something similar They lived 1947 years ago the Pompeians.

Now we finally know what one of the unfortunate people who did not manage to save himself did: hold on to your briefcase of doctor.

When Vesuvius woke up. The ruins of Pompeii were discovered long ago several centuries and archaeologists have been unraveling its mysteries for decades, trying to know above all what happened that fateful August 24, 79 AD (some versions speak of October) in which Vesuvius erupted and condemned the city of Campania, along with other towns such as Herculaneum, Stabia and Oplontis, asphyxiated under a layer of ash. However, despite all the research and rivers of ink that have flowed on the subject in recent years, the ruins of Pompey continue to retain their ability to surprise us.

A figure in Ortho dei Fuggiaschi. One of the corners that has aroused the most fascination is the Ortho dei Fuggiaschithe ‘Garden of the Fugitives’, where we have found the remains of some 13 victims of Vesuvius. The reason is very simple: thanks to the method archaeologist molding Giuseppe Fiorelli20 centuries later, their corpses continue to starkly reflect the desperation of those men, women and children who tried to save themselves while their city was eclipsed by a dense rain of ash and lapilli, the walls collapsed and Vesuvius spewed pyroclasts.

We knew that the victims who ended up perishing in the Ortho dei Fuggiaschi were probably seeking refuge, we also have a fairly precise idea of What were your last moments like? before dying. Thanks to Fiorelli’s plaster mold method we can even visualize the scene.

The big question is… Can we go further? Who were those people? What did they do? What did they do before leaving their homes on the run? They are fascinating questions. Especially because, before perishing, some victims of Vesuvius they left us clues about your routine. There are cases, for example, in which the scene suggests that the victims were carrying jewelry and coinswhich leads us to think that they were trying to keep their most valuable possessions safe, perhaps so as not to lose them. Perhaps to start a new life in an impulse not so different from the one we would have today.

Clinging to the medicine cabinet. Now researchers have discovered another story in it Ortho dei Fuggiaschil. More than 70 years after the first excavations and thanks to the use of

To be more precise, scientists have identified a small box of organic material with metal parts and a series of instruments “compatible with a medical kit.” For example, a slab of slate that could have been used to make medical or cosmetic substances and surgical instruments. The x-ray and tomography examination has also shown a cloth bag with bronze and silver coins and a mechanism with a toothed wheel that allowed the box to be closed. Those responsible for the site stand out Furthermore, the study was carried out without putting the molds at risk.

The decline of a doctor? That is the hypothesis with which the researchers work, who believe that the briefcase gives us a clue as to who the person who died next to him was. “He was probably a doctor, a victim of the tragedy while trying to escape, taking with him some of the tools of his trade,” he explains in a statement the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, which insists that the instruments located inside the case provide us with “a valuable and rare clue about his profession.”

“2,000 years ago there were people who were not limited to practicing medicine during office hours, but were doctors at all times, even when fleeing the eruption, which was thwarted by the pyroclastic cloud that reached the group of fugitives who were trying to leave the city through Porta Nocera,” reflect Gabriel Zuchtriegel. “This man took his instruments with him to be prepared to rebuild his life elsewhere thanks to his profession, but perhaps also to help others.”

Images | Pompeii Archaeological Park

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