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00:00MAMMA MIA
00:12Mamma mia!
00:14Veramente terribile sta frattura.
00:19Non ho mai scavato un essere umano ridotto così.
00:33È come se fosse diventato in 2D.
00:36Perché qua è proprio il blocco di...
00:43Potrebbe essere donna, potrebbe.
00:47Non ti do certezze.
00:54In AD 79,
00:56the eruption of Mount Vesuvius entombed Pompei in metres of pumice and ash,
01:02preserving the city and its people for two millennia.
01:07POMPEI
01:13Today, Pompei's ruins are the archeological wonder of the world.
01:16But, incredibly, one third of the 66 hectare site remains unexcavated.
01:25Now, this is about to change.
01:30As a team of Italian archeologists set out to unearth a new complex of buildings.
01:43This is the biggest excavation in a generation in Pompei.
01:47It's an entire city block.
01:49It took a very long time to plan it, so it's very specialised.
01:54As the team removes tons of ash and pumice, we'll see a new part of Pompei rise from the rubble for the first time in almost 2,000 years.
02:13Revealing new secrets about the lives of the ancient Romans.
02:32Imagine, always behind an object,
02:39the life of a person.
02:46This would like me to tell you.
02:48In AD 79, Pompei was a bustling cosmopolitan city.
03:11In AD 79, Pompei was a bustling cosmopolitan city.
03:15Situated on the Bay of Naples, it attracted rich Romans from across the empire.
03:28You can imagine life.
03:32A nice little town in the countryside where people went for holidays and vacation.
03:40But it's also very commercial.
03:47Every day, Pompei's bakeries, laundries and impressive amphitheatre hummed with life.
03:57You were in a cramped city full of people, full of noise.
04:06Chariots moving along the streets.
04:12Shops, public baths, children writing messages, drawing on the walls.
04:23People getting drunk, prostitutes.
04:27All that happening in a very limited space.
04:34But then, everything changed.
04:44The violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius threw a column of ash and rock 21 miles into the air.
04:57Burying Pompeii and its people for over 1700 years.
05:22Rediscovered in the 1740s, archaeologists have been excavating the ruins ever since.
05:47Today, the team start work on an untouched area of the site.
05:57This is Insula 10.
05:59A 3,000-square-metre city block backing onto Via Nola.
06:08A busy commercial street leading to the Eastern Gate, lined with shops and luxurious villas.
06:16This was a wealthy part of town.
06:21The archaeologists think they are likely to find a large residential complex.
06:28Possibly the home of an elite citizen.
06:34Pompeii is extremely fragile.
06:40And it's always a fight, a battle against time.
06:47Excavating is also a huge responsibility.
06:49You have to restore and protect what you excavate forever.
06:57And so it's an enormous challenge to preserve this site for future generations.
07:03As the dig begins, the team need heavy machinery to reach the original floor level.
07:17Buried under five metres of volcanic debris.
07:20In a small room close to the main street, anthropologist Valeria Amoretti has made a discovery.
07:39It's only a tiny tiny tiny hole.
07:45If I'm in the middle of the house, I don't see it properly.
07:52As soon as possible, I'll see it properly.
07:57I don't see it properly.
07:59It's constantly costed.
08:00I was constantly lost.
08:01Amad Datà!
08:02It's constantly lost.
08:03It's constantly lost.
08:04It's completely lost.
08:05I can't move.
08:07I think I can see the part behind the neck.
08:11So, in this case, it should be like this.
08:20Usually, if they come to us,
08:23I'm the person who calls me.
08:28But it's small and small.
08:30Yes, it's a minute.
08:32It's a minute.
08:34It's very open.
08:36It could be a woman.
08:38It could be.
08:40From what you can see,
08:42I don't know.
08:48It's a minute.
08:52But it's adult.
08:54Yes.
08:55Oh my God.
09:02Can I remove this?
09:03Yes, yes.
09:04OK.
09:10Valeria has been unearthing ancient bodies for many years.
09:15But this person didn't die alone.
09:30Close by, there's a second body.
09:33Oh, my God.
09:39But this person didn't die alone.
09:45Close by, there's a second body.
09:50Oh my God.
09:52because I see a series of shots laterals.
09:581, 2, 3, 4, 5.
10:05The moment of death is something I'm not used to,
10:18I'm not used to, I'm not used to.
10:24With both bodies severely crushed,
10:26the team are keen to find out exactly how they died,
10:30and who they were.
10:41Before the eruption, Pompeii's population
10:43was a rich mix of the Roman social strata.
10:48At the top, the powerful and wealthy,
10:51Pompeii's old money elite and the nouveau riche.
10:56Then, the skilled workers and labourers,
11:00including those that had won their freedom,
11:02plied their trade in the shops and markets.
11:05And at the very bottom, and doing most of the work,
11:10the enslaved workers.
11:14Pompeii's rich and poor, living cheek by jowl.
11:23Walking through Pompeii,
11:25you can really see a very stark social contrast
11:30between extremely rich people,
11:33with a large house,
11:36with the dining rooms and courtyards,
11:39a garden with running water,
11:43you know, fountains, statues,
11:45Greek marble,
11:47paintings and frescoes all over the house.
11:51And this, right next to all the little spaces.
12:07The majority were one or two, three-room apartments.
12:11Ten to fourteen people living there.
12:14It gets quite cramped.
12:23Many of the small apartments without kitchen,
12:25so you can understand why there are so many bakeries.
12:29Because people, essentially, who have no kitchen,
12:32they were eating bread.
12:34And that's it.
12:38Back at the dig,
12:39the team are clearing out a large, brick-built oven.
12:51Situated in the room next door to the bodies,
12:53it's unusual to find one so large in a private house.
12:57Giovanni!
12:58Giovanni!
13:03Giovanni!
13:04Come here!
13:05Come here,
13:06it seems to have seen the cinerite.
13:07Come here!
13:08Come here!
13:09Come here!
13:10Come here!
13:11It's a cinerite.
13:13Yes!
13:14If it was formed with an eruption,
13:16it means that no one had the hands of it.
13:21Okay.
13:22I'm sorry.
13:23I'm sorry.
13:24You're right.
13:25It's the end of the top, eh?
13:26No.
13:31No, Giovanni.
13:32Don't hurt you.
13:33Don't hurt you.
13:34Don't hurt you.
13:35Don't hurt you.
13:37Gennaro Jovino is one of the dig's team leaders.
13:41He's lived close to the ruins all his life.
13:44I'm from Scafati,
13:47a few steps from the city of Pompeii.
13:50It's also because Scafati is no other than a suburb of Pompeii,
13:55where there were a lot of rural villages,
13:57so it's like to really excavate a house.
14:03I find myself on the ground where my antennas were born.
14:10It's amazing.
14:16We'll come back another day,
14:17and then we'll try to enter.
14:18We'll try to get out of here,
14:20you understand?
14:21We'll find a surprise inside.
14:29We'll be,
14:30in the eyes of the cyclone,
14:31the good and the bad.
14:32We'll be those who will ask
14:35what we found.
14:40And so I imagine
14:43that from here to a year,
14:44I'll resume
14:47a year of work,
14:49hundreds of US,
14:52hundreds of USM,
14:54of clothing,
14:56in a phrase
14:58that we found.
14:59We'll find out.
15:08Yes?
15:09Is this?
15:10It's the nose.
15:13You can't even recognize it as a human being,
15:16but this is the orbit,
15:17the nose,
15:18the nose,
15:19the teeth,
15:20and this is what remains
15:21of the zigzag,
15:22in short,
15:23of the malaria.
15:24As Valeria continues to work
15:26on the fragile skeletons,
15:28she wants to understand
15:29how these people died.
15:30As Valeria continues to work
15:31on the fragile skeletons,
15:33she wants to understand
15:34how these people died.
15:36considerate the gravity of the lesions,
15:40I don't think it's a death
15:42that has been required for a long time.
15:45I think it's something instantaneous.
15:53What could have killed
15:54these people so quickly?
15:59Volcanologist Professor Chris Jackson
16:01is an expert in ancient volcanoes.
16:06He's come to a partially unexcavated area
16:08of Pompeii
16:09to examine some of the volcanic rock
16:11that buried the city.
16:20Here we're looking at some of the material
16:22associated with the very earliest phase
16:24of the eruption,
16:25and it's this white pumice we have here.
16:29And if you were in Pompeii at that time,
16:31the sky would have been black.
16:33It would have been very dark
16:34because all of this material
16:36would have been swirling around
16:37in the atmosphere
16:38before raining down out the sky
16:40like snow.
16:42But the thing is,
16:43it was falling continuously
16:44during that earliest phase
16:45of the eruption,
16:46quickly building up into a thick layer
16:48on the roofs of the houses.
16:50And although this material is quite light
16:52and these particles are quite small,
16:55this would have been falling out the sky
16:57for around about 19 hours,
16:59those roofs would not have been able
17:01to withstand the thick layer of material
17:03deposited in a relatively short period of time.
17:07And amazingly,
17:08my feet are on ground level here at Pompeii,
17:11and this wall of rock towers above me,
17:14really giving you a sense of the material
17:16that came into this city and swamped it.
17:19during that initial phase of the eruption,
17:29ash and pumice was raining down
17:31on the roofs of houses in Pompeii.
17:34Some residents may have come inside
17:36to hide indoors,
17:38unaware that the build-up,
17:41the slow creep of this incessant ashfall
17:44was eventually going to lead
17:46to catastrophic failure
17:48and loss of life in Pompeii.
17:56We decided between the weight
17:58of the roof on the roof...
18:00And the weight.
18:01Maybe it could not.
18:02Right?
18:03It was...
18:07Oh, my God.
18:08You can't see the idea of how much
18:12it can weigh a solar system.
18:14It should be about 300 kg per square meter.
18:18Ready?
18:19It's done.
18:20You can see all the pieces.
18:21You can see it.
18:22You can see it.
18:23You can see it.
18:24You can see it.
18:25You can see it.
18:26You can see it.
18:27It's a hole.
18:28Yes.
18:29It's a hole.
18:30You can see it.
18:31It's a hole.
18:32It's a hole.
18:33It's a hole.
18:34It's a hole.
18:35And it's a hole.
18:36You can see it.
18:37You can see it.
18:38It's a hole.
18:39The revelation that a collapsing ceiling
18:40crushed these people
18:41implies they were sheltering in this room
18:44during the eruption.
18:46But who they were remains a mystery.
18:57Next door, in the oven room,
19:00Gennaro calls in Nicola Montex,
19:02expert on Roman bakeries,
19:05to try to determine what the oven was used for.
19:35I would say, with all of a calmness, yes, yes, it's impossible that it would be a home stove.
19:45Is there an exit on the road? No, we haven't found it.
19:52Commercial properties in Pompeii usually had shopfronts opening onto the street.
19:59But there's no evidence of one here.
20:05There's not a sale, but there's a distribution.
20:09Exactly.
20:10That's right.
20:11That's good.
20:17The team have discovered this was not a domestic, but a commercial bakery,
20:22distributing bread around the city.
20:30At the time of the eruption, Pompeii was thriving.
20:35Traders and visitors flocked to the town and baking was big business.
20:41Bread was a key staple of the Roman diet.
20:46And remarkably, some loaves still survive.
20:51This is one of the carbonized bread that was founded here in Pompeii.
21:00This shape of bread is one of the most common in Pompeii.
21:04So the panis quadratus that have this rounded shape and that was divided in four or eight slices.
21:12This is one of the last bread that was baked in Pompeii in 79 AD.
21:21And here you can see the fingerprint of the bakers.
21:25And this is the last action, we can say, of the worker that worked in the bakery.
21:31But what would life have been like for those working in the newly discovered bakery?
21:47Across Pompeii, over 40 bakeries have been found.
21:52Nicola Montex has come to one of the best preserved.
21:58The living in the restaurant is not a living in the restaurant.
22:08And then, there's a power in the oven,
22:10and then, there's a big heat that varies from 100 to 500 degrees.
22:14500 degrés, ces meules qui tirent le plus la meule pour qu'elle tourne, devaient
22:25aussi être maintenues en équilibre par un être humain.
22:28Il la tenait en équilibre et il devait en même temps faire avancer l'âme, mettre
22:34du grain en haut et ramasser la farine, et ça toute la journée.
22:38Voilà, il y avait le bruit permanent des sabots sur le basalte, le probable bruit des meules
22:47qui tournent.
22:48On en a une description dans l'âme d'or d'Apulé, où il nous décrit là des personnes qui sont
22:58des esclaves, qui travaillent dans la boulangerie, et il nous les décrit tous comme très maigres,
23:04couverts de poussière, de poussière blanche, parce qu'en fait c'est la farine qui leur
23:08tombe dessus, et vraiment dans des états en guenille, ça devait être passablement horrible.
23:203 months in, the team have unearthed a large oven, indicating this was a commercial bakery,
23:43and a small room next door containing two skeletons.
23:51Now they begin excavating an untouched area in the centre of the block, the atrium, or
23:57reception room, where visitors, merchants and workers might have vented from the main street
24:02outside.
24:32Soit c'est un moment, c'est un moment emotional.
24:40Jennaro, c'est ce qu'il dîner, ce que tu as est.
24:50C'est une forme d'une machine.
24:54Mais c'est une moitié.
24:57This is a millstone used to grind grain.
25:04They were essential for making bread.
25:07But why is this in the reception room?
25:11Alessandro Russo, co-team leader, joins Gennaro,
25:16trying to make sense of the discovery.
25:20It seems good.
25:23Yes, yes.
25:24But it's not that they were doing it.
25:26They were doing the new one.
25:27Where are we?
25:28Look at the signs of the rasp.
25:30The 20th perrona.
25:32To sculpt it.
25:33It's not that they were preparing it.
25:35The new ones were preparing it.
25:37The signs are almost there.
25:39They are always consumed.
25:41Look at that.
25:43It's not that they were preparing it.
25:45The signs are almost there.
25:47They are always consumed.
25:49Look at that.
25:50Look at that.
25:51These are the four teeth.
25:52It's really cool.
25:53Yes.
25:54The four teeth.
25:55You put it like this and do it.
25:57So you work it.
25:58And you see how it is.
26:00This millstone was brand new and unused at the time of the eruption.
26:06And just metres away, something equally unexpected appears.
26:11thearios.
26:12Dr.
26:16Dr.
26:17Dr.
26:18Dr.
26:19Dr.
26:20Dr.
26:21Dr.
26:22Well, we'll get the ground.
26:23The cleaning is better.
26:24Go, go, go.
26:25Go again.
26:28Go, go, go.
26:31These are 2,000-year-old roof tiles.
26:34They're still in almost perfect condition.
26:46Finding dozens of new roof tiles and a brand-new millstone
26:50suggests that renovation work was taking place here.
27:01But why?
27:04Could this building work be linked to a dramatic event
27:07which rocked Pompeii 17 years before the eruption?
27:20Mount Vesuvius still looms large over the ruins of the city.
27:262,000 years ago, to the Pompeians,
27:30it would have looked like any other mountain,
27:34but its looks were deceiving.
27:42Magma is always moving around within the Earth's crust
27:45and sometimes when that magma moves,
27:47it pushes against the rocks and those rocks can break
27:51and it's the breaking of those rocks
27:53that can generate a series of earthquakes.
27:56In AD 62, a violent earthquake shook the city.
28:05The earthquake severely damaged Pompeii.
28:08And following that earthquake, there was a number of other earthquakes.
28:14These earthquakes damaged buildings across the city.
28:15Back at the dig, evidence is mounting that this property was one of them.
28:17and was still being repaired 17 years before.
28:20The earthquake severely damaged Pompeii.
28:21The earthquake severely damaged Pompeii.
28:25And following that earthquake, there was a number of other earthquakes.
28:30The earthquake severely damaged buildings across the city.
28:35Back at the dig, evidence is mounting that this property was one of them.
28:40and was still being repaired 17 years later.
28:47but then there was a little bit more than a destination.
28:50This is quite a disaster.
28:55This is a disaster.
28:59And here, we can find out where the glaciers are.
29:02So we have pretty much people living here today.
29:04This is the campground.
29:06So, this house was built,
29:12they don't know anything.
29:17At this point, we should probably find
29:20the equipment used for the camp,
29:24the caffetteria equipment.
29:32If they're not escaped, we'll find the workers.
29:35What do you say?
29:36Because if they were working...
29:38Yes, yes.
29:39Let's see.
29:42Congratulations. Let's continue.
29:51In a small room nearby,
29:53the team discover more evidence
29:55of ongoing repair work.
30:05Yes, yes.
30:13Ternaro, can you go down a little bit?
30:17You're going to spend it.
30:19Let's go.
30:20Let's go.
30:21Let's go.
30:22Here, the equipment continue.
30:25Wow.
30:26You know how many measurements are?
30:27Yes.
30:28But this is the caffetter.
30:29The caffetter ended up like this.
30:30Yes.
30:31Yes.
30:32Yes.
30:33Yes.
30:34Yes.
30:35Yes.
30:36Yes.
30:37A pile.
30:40A pile.
30:43Yes.
30:44A pile?
30:45Yes.
30:46Yes!
30:47A pile.
30:48It's a big one.
30:50You look like a big one.
30:52Yes.
30:53Yes, it's a big one.
30:55Ah.
30:56Beautiful.
30:58You're enjoying yourself.
31:00I like this one.
31:02I don't have a fresh one.
31:04These are all the artists of the curator.
31:07All of them.
31:08Give me this one.
31:10Gilbeth.
31:12Yes.
31:13He turned it.
31:15Yes, he is.
31:16Yes.
31:18It's amazing how nothing has changed.
31:22It's yours.
31:23It's yours.
31:24It's yours.
31:25It's yours.
31:26It's yours.
31:27It's yours.
31:28It's yours.
31:29It's yours.
31:31Since I was in the world of the artist,
31:33before I did my job,
31:35there are things that I use.
31:38They show that
31:41they have noticed that
31:44they are also functional.
31:49Why do they change?
31:50They have three different sizes.
31:54Yes.
31:55If I could imagine,
31:56I would have already used it.
31:57It's not true that they are all in line.
31:59No, no.
32:00They are all in position.
32:02Like our workers.
32:03Like our workers.
32:04Yes.
32:05Of course, it's better.
32:06But surely,
32:09with the house
32:12the house was the deposit.
32:14The deposit and the equipment.
32:16The our barrack
32:17of the equipment.
32:18That is the last thing that they were in the last place.
32:21This is what they did.
32:22If you put the stanza
32:24that this is a garage,
32:25that you keep it to the end of the end,
32:27that they are all aligned.
32:28It's now clear that builders were at work when the eruption occurred repairing the damage caused by the earthquakes
32:49Similar repairs were being carried out all over Pompeii
32:58Archaeologist dr. Domenico Esposito is visiting a building known as the house of the painters at work
33:14Here there is clear evidence of how a group of Roman decorators was suddenly interrupted by the disaster
33:21This decorator was working in this room on the north wall exactly in the middle of the red panel
33:32Where he was realizing a big mythological scene
33:37I can still recognize some warriors
33:41Another colleague was preparing the wall for the black ground
33:47a third decorator was realizing part of the architectural frames that are enriching the decorations
33:59Domenico thinks it took four highly skilled painters and their assistants to restore the delicate frescoes
34:07Two of the four frames they were planning to realize are finished
34:13A third one is still unfinished, but we can interestingly recognize the preparatory sketch used by the decorator
34:25This is for us an important clue of this
34:29Restoring and redecorating the houses affected from the earthquakes
34:43When the eruption started the workers here fled
34:58Leaving behind not just their half-finished frescoes
35:03But also their paints
35:06Still in their original pots
35:08They left all their stuff on the side
35:14Trying to escape from the eruption
35:20It gave me the opportunity to understand exactly which tools they were using
35:27Which colors they were using to paint
35:30And in that sense, the house of painters at work is unique and extraordinary
35:41At the dig the team is unearthing evidence that the builders here also left in a hurry
36:11Invece, I think that here we have reached the lowest level of this stratification of the most moments of the production of this foliage
36:21In the most moments of the production of this foliage
36:23In the most moments of the time
36:25In the most moments of the time
36:27In the cenere, carbonia
36:29Look, look
36:31Look, look
36:33Look, look
36:35Look, this is an egg
36:37Forse of a fish
36:39Forse of a fish
36:41I'm looking at the fish
36:43I'm looking at the fish
36:45I'm looking at the fish
36:47Look, look
36:49Look, this is an astragalus of a fish
36:51So, you see, the trace of macellation
36:53This is the trace of the fish
36:55This is the trace of the fish
36:57It's just a macellation
36:59It's a beautiful
37:01Here
37:05It's typical of the Roman period
37:07Of the consumption of the mayo
37:09This animal was the principal animal
37:12But beautiful
37:13They're very good.
37:22This is fish?
37:23Yes, also fish.
37:25Fish, okay.
37:27This is one of the ones in the village.
37:29So, probably common people could have allowed this.
37:36Are these the remains of the builder's last meal?
37:43Dr. Erica Rowan is an expert in ancient food.
37:50She believes examining what the Romans were eating
37:55provides a window into their world.
37:58By studying food, you can kind of study almost any aspect
38:03of the ancient world, so you can look at politics,
38:06you can look at colonialism or imperial expansion,
38:09but then you can also look at what regular people are eating
38:12on a daily basis.
38:14It's a good lens with which to kind of look at life in the past,
38:19to really try and connect with their kind of lived experiences,
38:23the good glimpse into kind of ancient lives.
38:29Erica joins Chiara to investigate the remains
38:32of the ancient workers' meal.
38:40This is a small fragment of a fish, and look at this.
38:46It's a nice piece of fiction.
38:47Yeah.
38:49In Pompeii, to have this mix of ingredients
38:53seems to have been something quite common.
38:55Yeah, it's quite diverse and flavorful,
38:57and even kind of regular people can afford
38:59quite a wide range of ingredients.
39:01Yeah, yeah.
39:02And, of course, eggs, you can just, you know,
39:03hard boil them and carry them anywhere,
39:05so they're a good snack while you're working.
39:08And we found this almost complete kind of cooking,
39:14not a pot, but a...
39:16Casserole dish?
39:17A shallow bowl?
39:18A casserole dish?
39:19A shallow bowl?
39:20And it was located on the fireplace,
39:23so it's quite likely that they cooked this animal there.
39:27Oh, yeah, you can see, like, the burn.
39:29Yeah, yeah, there are evidence of burning.
39:34I guess you can picture everyone's working
39:35and one guy goes to the side and he's just making lunch.
39:38Yeah, yeah.
39:39In a quarter.
39:48You can imagine them, where they've set up,
39:50their kind of little lunch station every day.
39:52Somebody goes over and kind of lights the fire
39:55and gets it going and starts making food
39:57while the rest of them work.
40:03Somebody potentially just sitting on the stairs,
40:05eating the pork, eating the chicken.
40:12And then kind of discarding the bones and thinking,
40:14I'll clean them up later when we're all finished.
40:18But, of course, that didn't happen.
40:24It was a particularly touching scene
40:27because it is entirely the norm.
40:29That is what people would do.
40:33That little moment in time
40:34that you can really kind of imagine their regular lives.
40:48As the dig continues, in the southwest corner of the atrium,
40:55a fascinating fresco has come to light.
41:00In the middle of the atrium, the front corner of the atrium,
41:02in the middle of the atrium,
41:03a yellowish one of the atrium.
41:04The first things that came out of the atrium
41:06was the other that the red light was the light,
41:07which was the light.
41:08In the beginning we discovered this part of the parament, where there is the yellow decoration.
41:18The first things that were coming out were the lights.
41:23Then you see a red spot, a cup.
41:29As soon as we came out, we started to identify the first colors.
41:36The curiosity is so much, because you understand that you are facing something that is totally exalted.
41:46You don't know what it is, but you know that it is a precious thing.
41:52In the center is a food offering.
41:56With fruit, a cup of wine, and what looks like a pizza.
42:02One of the first frescoes of its kind found in a Pompeian house.
42:08I came to the excavation and somebody said to me, you know, after the oven, there is also the pizza.
42:15And I thought it was actually a joke.
42:18I didn't think there actually was something like a pizza.
42:21The temperament of the staff was huge and grew more and increased.
42:31But we had a moment, before we stopped the activity to put everything in safety so beautiful.
42:38And it's clear that in that moment the mind goes really a lot ahead.
42:46What have they painted? What does it mean?
43:08It's something that might be considered a kind of ancestor of modern pizza,
43:16in the sense that it's a very simple, poor kind of food,
43:22but it then became part of this lavish decoration.
43:33It's simple food,
43:35but the quality of the painting is impressive.
43:39And close by, other colourful frescoes are starting to emerge.
43:46It's a good-sized atrium,
43:48so it presumably was a potentially wealthier household.
43:52But I do think it is aspirational
43:54in that it wants to show possibly more wealth than they have
43:57or the wealth that they do have.
44:00I feel like they're aiming probably for kind of a luxurious look
44:03because it's a big silver platter and then a big silver cup to show wealth.
44:09And there's a lot of detail and a lot of different colours,
44:11so a lot of effort has gone into it.
44:15It is unique. It is different.
44:17So it's obviously also a commission.
44:19So they have spent time and money and effort on it.
44:22It's a new fresco because they hadn't finished the rest of the atrium.
44:28And of course, if they were just renovating it or redoing this room,
44:31presumably it's in the very last years before the eruption
44:34or maybe even AD 79 itself if they were finishing the room.
44:37The quality of the pizza fresco suggests whoever owned this building wanted to impress visitors.
44:50Across Pompeii, experts have found evidence that bakeries were a route to wealth and social status.
44:57Professor John Clarke, an expert in ancient Roman art, has come to see a portrait found in another large Pompeian bakery.
45:10So what's this picture doing in a bakery?
45:19Because this is a man and a woman looking very fancy.
45:25The woman holds the diptych in her hand and the stylus to her chin
45:30and the man is wearing a toga, which is a sinus status.
45:35Commissioning a portrait of this quality was very expensive.
45:42These are two people who have made it.
45:45They had strived to make their bakery bigger, expanded it,
45:52and they were able to pay a very good portrait artist to make this painting.
45:59But if you look at the upper part of the painting,
46:02then you see two people who are just like us, kind of, you know, they're ordinary
46:08and they wanted to look like they looked in life.
46:14At the time of the eruption, artists were making idealized images even of ordinary people.
46:20But what's so interesting here is that these two individuals said,
46:25no, we want to look like who we are.
46:30So what we have here is almost the equivalent of a photograph
46:35because it's showing all of the irregularities of the face.
46:39It's not all smoothed out and made perfect.
46:42It's not idealized.
46:44Their faces are faces of real people.
46:46This is amazing.
46:48Because what we see here is what people looked like 2,000 years ago.
46:56We can imagine the smell of the bread and the sound of the mills.
47:09We're looking at a time capsule from sometime right before the eruption of 79.
47:28And what's amazing is that they're still here for us.
47:32They're speaking to us over almost 2,000 years.
47:35At the excavation, Valeria and her team look for clues that could help identify the two bodies.
47:55Could they be the wealthy owners of the bakery who ordered the renovations and paid for the pizza fresco?
48:03Ah, ah, a coin!
48:04What did you say?
48:06A coin?
48:07We said we didn't have anything.
48:08Here it is.
48:09It should be photographed immediately.
48:10You see, there are two.
48:12One above the other.
48:13There are two.
48:15One above the other.
48:17One above the other.
48:19One above the other.
48:21One above the other.
48:22Two.
48:24One above the other.
48:26The two.
48:28One above the other.
48:30and one on the other. They are attached.
48:33He doesn't have anything, even this.
48:39What do you think?
48:41What do you think?
48:42No, nothing.
48:44No, nothing.
48:45What?
48:46No, nothing.
48:47No, nothing.
48:48No, nothing.
48:49They don't give up the idea of rich Patrizia,
48:53even if they would have done what they would have done.
48:55The rich Patrizia in a kitchen.
48:57It was scary.
49:04The lack of personal possessions suggests
49:07these people were not the bakery owners,
49:10but enslaved workers.
49:12And after further analysis,
49:15Valeria thinks she can identify their age and sex.
49:27The first victim to be excavated was an old woman,
49:30which we see from the dentistry and from the simfisi pubblica.
49:34And when I say an old woman,
49:36I mean an old woman,
49:37which means more than 55 years old.
49:40And digging further, Valeria uncovers a shocking new find.
49:59And digging further, Valeria uncovers a shocking new find.
50:06The two crushed bodies are accompanied by tiny fragments of a third.
50:31You're a child.
50:32Yeah, it's a child.
50:33Look, this is a tibia.
50:34Is it a little bit smaller?
50:35Yes, it's a child.
50:36Look at this.
50:37This is a tibia.
50:38It's really small, small?
50:39Yes.
50:40Probably the upper part…
50:41It's not even possible to find the rest.
50:42Because the upper part could have been removed.
50:44The upper part was not good.
50:45Probably...
50:47It's not even said that we'll find the rest,
50:49because the other part could have already removed it.
50:52This is not good.
50:55I would say, under five years.
50:58Ampiamente under five years.
51:08And above all, I didn't expect to find a child.
51:12It was the last of my thoughts.
51:14I have children.
51:29Six months into the dig,
51:31Gennaro and the team have a clearer picture
51:33of the lives of the people who once lived and worked here.
51:38This large oven was part of a thriving commercial bakery.
51:44In a small room at the front of the building,
51:48three people, probably enslaved workers,
51:51were crushed by a collapsing ceiling.
51:54In the richly decorated atrium,
51:57the building owner had commissioned a unique fresco.
52:01And abandoned building materials complete with tools
52:05and the remains of a worker's last meal,
52:07suggest these buildings were under reconstruction
52:10just before disaster struck.
52:13The fact that the house was destroyed
52:17shows us that there is a project for a future.
52:23That means that there is a new beginning
52:28compared to a destruction,
52:30which is that of the terremoto.
52:32There is a death and a resurrection
52:38that is testimonied by a project
52:40to revive that house.
52:46But it was destroyed by the eruption of 1979.
52:4924 hours before the eruption,
53:05things would have started to change in Pompeii.
53:08There would have been a series of earthquakes shaking the city.
53:18There would be smells in the air,
53:20sulphur dioxide being expelled from the magma within the volcano.
53:26There would have been emissions of steam out of the volcano
53:31as magma rose through the volcano
53:33and actually came into contact with water.
53:36Animals, birds would have started to leave the area.
53:40They would have known something had changed.
53:44And then about an hour before the eruption,
53:47there was an emission of steam and ash from Vesuvius.
53:50Gases within the magma started to increase the pressure
53:57within the volcano,
53:58which at that time didn't have a crater
54:01but was covered by hard rock.
54:06Those pressures built and built and built,
54:09finally blowing the top off the volcano.
54:13Magma and rock surged out of the centre of that crater,
54:23going up a few tens of kilometres very quickly into the atmosphere.
54:29The people living in Pompeii at that moment
54:31would have known something was happening,
54:34but they wouldn't have heard anything straight away.
54:36And that's because the sound of the top of the volcano
54:39being blown off took 24 seconds to reach them.
54:55Chaos broke out across the city.
54:59And now we can begin to picture the scene of terror
55:02that played out in the room at the front of the bakery.
55:05Two women and a small child came here to shelter
55:08from the hail of pumice and ash.
55:20If one imagines the fear of this child,
55:23who is looking for the arms,
55:25most likely a mother,
55:27the fear of her mother,
55:40and especially for her children,
55:43if you stop for a moment,
55:46it destabilizes you.
55:48–
55:55–
55:58Do you know what happened?
55:59–
56:01He begins to rain and 춥.
56:02–
56:03–
56:05–
56:06–
56:11As the pumice continued to rain down, after several hours, the ceiling collapsed, killing
56:26all three instantly.
56:41All over the city, people were facing the same life or death decision.
56:51Should they stay or should they go?
57:03But for two women and a child in a bakery near the Eastern Gate, it was too late.
57:10Next time, the team continues to unearth the glories of Pompeii.
57:26And a new investigation begins.
57:37Would anyone have survived the disaster?
57:43What if people got out?
57:46Did they go alone?
57:48Where might they have gone?
57:49No.
57:50No.
57:53No.
57:53No.
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