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00:00This region is full of traces of the past waiting to be discovered.
00:25Just 28 miles from Pompeii,
00:28across the Bay of Naples are the sunken ruins of the Roman port of Misenum.
00:35It was the main military harbour of the Roman Empire,
00:40the basis of the biggest fleet of this time.
00:46In AD 79, the Roman writer Pliny the Younger is here,
00:51visiting his uncle, the admiral of the fleet.
00:57Pliny is just sitting on the terrace of his villa.
01:06When he noticed something strange and amazing,
01:09big cloud is exploding from the top of the resuvius,
01:18creating the shape of a very high pine tree.
01:24Pliny records every detail as he watches the drama unfold.
01:38Today, he lends his name to this deadly type of eruption.
01:43He is witnessing the beginning of a Plinian eruption.
01:51The most famous volcanic eruption of the history.
01:55While Pliny watches from safety,
01:58for the residents of Pompeii,
02:00the eruption is a matter of life or death.
02:03Within hours, thousands will perish as their city is entombed in metres of ash.
02:12Two millennia later, a team of archaeologists is removing that volcanic debris.
02:24This is the most ambitious dig in a generation.
02:33The all-Italian team are excavating an entire new city block on a wealthy commercial street,
02:39as they look to write the next chapter of the last moments of Pompeii.
02:53In one corner, they have discovered what was once a commercial bakery.
02:58In a small room, they made a shocking discovery.
03:09Buried under the debris were the crushed remains of two women and a young child,
03:16all killed by a collapsing ceiling.
03:19I don't think it would be a death that had been required for a long time.
03:24I think it would be something instantane.
03:28Next door, an internal courtyard connected the bakery to the living quarters of a wealthy townhouse.
03:35The lavish frescoes include what looks like one of the first ever depictions of a pizza.
03:42You understand that you are facing something that is exalted.
03:49You know that it is a precious thing.
03:54Now, the excavation continues.
03:58What more can it reveal about those who lived and died in the eruption of AD 79?
04:05ΒΆΒΆ
04:11ΒΆΒΆ
04:14To be continued...
04:43by removing the last piece of lapillo.
04:46So the curiosity increases
04:49because lapillo always hides many surprises.
04:55Led by archaeologist Gennaro Jovino,
04:58the excavation has moved to the reception hall, or atrium,
05:03right next to the bakery where the bodies were found.
05:06Here they discovered building materials and tools,
05:14indicating that the whole building was under reconstruction
05:18at the time of the eruption.
05:36Gennaro!
05:42Hey, Mauri!
05:44What's going on?
05:48Oh, it's very good.
05:50It's still there.
05:52I see a knife here, Mauri.
05:54What do you see?
05:55Oh, this one.
05:57This knife.
06:01What do you say?
06:02It's better.
06:06It's all decorated.
06:10Oh, Mauri!
06:11Do you understand what this is?
06:13Oh my God, Mauri!
06:16Do you understand that?
06:18I have an idea.
06:19I have an idea.
06:20I have an idea.
06:21What do you think of this?
06:23Imagine something like this.
06:25Ok?
06:26Yes.
06:27This is a knife.
06:28What do you know?
06:29What do you know?
06:30It's a knife.
06:31It's a knife.
06:33Yes.
06:34Good.
06:35This, inside the lathe,
06:37they had a hook
06:39where they were holding the rod of the horse.
06:41It's a exceptional thing.
06:43This means that...
06:45What size are we?
06:47More or less from the pavement?
06:49A meter.
06:51So, a meter, a meter and a half.
06:53It's a little bit more than that.
06:55It's very good.
06:56It's good.
06:57It's good.
06:58It's good.
06:59It's good.
07:00It's good.
07:01It's good.
07:02It's good.
07:03It's good.
07:04It's good.
07:05It's good.
07:06For 2000 years, this bronze harness lay where it was left.
07:12Gennaro and his team now have evidence of builders and horses on the site just before
07:34the eruption.
07:35But as they haven't found any more bodies, the question is, what happened to them?
07:42Could they have escaped the volcano and made it to safety?
07:59It's hard to make decisions during volcanic eruptions whether to stay and guard your property
08:04and stay with your loved ones, or whether to flee.
08:13Volcanologist Professor Chris Jackson believes the Pompeians would have had to act quickly
08:19to stand a chance of survival.
08:22Within the first hour to hour and a half of the eruption, the column grew from around 14
08:27kilometres high to about 22, 23 kilometres high.
08:32That's about twice the altitude at which a commercial aircraft flies.
08:46The rising column driving everything up skyward would have caused a zone of low pressure, meaning
08:51that the air from the surrounding region was sucked in.
08:57The weather was changed by this volcanic eruption.
09:01The wind would have picked up as the wind swept along these narrow streets towards Vesuvius.
09:05For people fleeing the city, racing down these streets, behind them would have been chaos, ash falling
09:16out of the sky.
09:17We'd have seen lightning as electrically charged particles started to interact.
09:26Imagine trying to run through metres of freshly fallen snow, with a horse or a cart or just
09:43carrying things in your hands, panicking as well at the same time.
09:48It would have been almost like the end of the world.
09:51But at this moment, people in Pompeii would still have had a chance to escape.
10:00They'd have been disorientated, they'd have been scared, but they would still have had
10:03a chance to exit the city through one of the gates.
10:09But any window that was open for the residents to leave was rapidly slamming shut.
10:19Experts have never known exactly how many people lived in Pompeii in AD 79, but it is believed
10:31to be 10,000 to 12,000.
10:36However, in 300 years of excavation, archaeologists have only found just over 1,200 bodies.
10:46So, did some of the residents escape the horror?
10:51And if so, where did they go?
11:00Scholars have long thought there must have been people that made it out.
11:04It's just that nobody ever went looking for them before.
11:11Now, Professor Stephen Tuck of Miami University is attempting to trace survivors in a pioneering
11:18new research project.
11:19I always wondered, what happened afterwards?
11:23What if people got out?
11:25Where might they have gone?
11:28What were their lives like?
11:30There's just so many questions that spiral once you open up the possibility that somebody
11:36got out.
11:37For the last decade, Stephen has combed online databases of Roman inscriptions looking
11:52for clues.
11:54Now he's come to Pompeii to try to prove his theory.
12:02What an amazing find.
12:09Look at the carving on this.
12:12This is absolutely beautiful and just in pristine condition.
12:21His first stop is a newly discovered tomb on the edge of town.
12:27This Latin inscription holds vital evidence that Stephen believes changes the thinking on
12:33how many people really lived in Pompeii.
12:38So this was found about four years ago.
12:41You can still see, attached to the tomb, the remains of the pumice and the eruption material.
12:51While the owner's name is lost, the inscription describes his life in detail.
12:59The dinners he held, the giveaways of bread, the gladiatorial games, the animal hunts he sponsored.
13:05It's his entire life defined by his acts for the community.
13:12Most intriguingly, the inscription reveals a lavish banquet he gave for all the male citizens of Pompeii.
13:21So we've got 456 dining couches with 15 men on each one.
13:28Knowing that the benefactor hosted nearly 7,000 male guests, Stephen believes he can work out Pompeii's true population.
13:49Every one of these guys has families and wives and kids and enslaved people,
13:54which means that there can't only be 10,000 people in the community.
13:58We think that this indicates probably a population of about 30,000.
14:03This inscription tripled what we think the populace of Pompeii was.
14:08If 30,000 people lived in the city, it means over 90% of Pompeiians are still missing.
14:20People could have perished outside the city, on the roads or on the coast.
14:25But with this vast, much larger number, there may have been thousands and thousands of people that made it out from the city.
14:35There's a lot more people missing than we were aware of.
14:44And Stephen believes a major clue as to where they went is hiding in plain sight.
14:51As you walk around the city of Pompeii, there's some really intriguing evidence that I think of as evidence from absence.
14:59And one of those is right at your feet, tracks in the road.
15:04Many of the roads have these cart tracks in them, indicating in the last years of the city, dozens, perhaps hundreds of carts and wagons,
15:15pulled by mules, donkeys, maybe even by slaves, filled the streets of the city.
15:20And then when they excavated, they found almost none of those.
15:25Almost no carts, very few horses.
15:30All of these are gone, and they're not within the city limits, indicating that perhaps people got out.
15:37Perhaps people got out.
15:49At the dig, Gennaro and his team are still looking for the remains of a horse that had once worn the brass harness.
15:56While the horse may have escaped, the team have found another animal, part of a highly decorated roof.
16:21These lion heads are ornate gutters, used to channel rainwater.
16:34The old lion is back home.
16:46There are some repairs.
16:47Ah, and where?
16:48In fact, look.
16:49Here is an ancient.
16:50Here is an ancient.
16:51Here is an ancient.
16:52There is a tumor.
16:53There is a tumor.
16:54In the case of a lesion.
16:56And this means that they repaired this element when this element was still mounted on the roof.
17:03Archaeologist Auxilia Trapani notices subtle differences in the design over time.
17:14These masks of lion's masks are more ancient and are around the second century a.C.
17:24This means that there were at least two centuries of difference.
17:29Two centuries of difference.
17:31So this means that this is an inheritance of the ancient house.
17:38In the first phase.
17:39Yes.
17:40I believe there is also a desire to preserve something more ancient,
17:47which would somehow give prestige.
17:50These lion head gutters were an integral part of the atrium roof, which was open in the middle.
17:59When it rained, they funneled water into a central tank called an impluvium,
18:05an ornate solution to a practical problem designed to show off the owner's wealth and status.
18:20The more the team dig, the clearer it becomes.
18:41This building owner spared no expense to decorate his atrium.
18:50This is a base.
18:52It's a base.
18:54There is a statue on top of the top.
18:56There is a statue.
18:58This is a statue.
19:00This is the same place.
19:02My God.
19:04My God.
19:06Look at this.
19:08Look at what's happening here.
19:09The decoration.
19:10Look at this beautiful.
19:12Yes.
19:13There is a face with the lion's face.
19:15And there is another one on the other side.
19:20Look at this table.
19:22This is the table that was in the atrium.
19:24Look at how it's in position, Gilbert.
19:27Just to impress the customers.
19:29They were in the house.
19:30They were in the house.
19:31They were in the house.
19:32They were very rich.
19:37The solid marble table and other fittings all suggested the team
19:41that the owner of this property was a rich and influential Pompeian.
19:57It's true that it's a house that is a house that is a beautiful and important house.
20:13Perfect.
20:14Good.
20:15Good.
20:16Good.
20:17Good.
20:18Good.
20:19Good.
20:20li Γ¨
20:29e ...
20:31there
20:32salute
20:33ζ€
20:36Il beino constituteria
20:37In a room at the rear of the site,
20:38the team turn their attention to the elaborately decorated walls.
20:41Hidden under layers of hardened ash is an ornate fresco.
20:48It's amazing to think that from 1979 to today
20:54it's the first time it's been exposed.
21:02After being buried for 2,000 years,
21:05the exposed painting is vulnerable to the weather.
21:11Only after they have protected it from the rain can the team begin to restore it.
21:26Manu, how is the purification?
21:41This is a scene from the Greek myth of Achilles, the famous hero of the Trojan War.
21:46This is a scene from the Greek myth of Achilles, the famous hero of the Trojan War.
21:53This is a scene from the Greek myth of Achilles, the famous hero of the Trojan War.
22:00This is a scene from the Greek myth of Achilles, the famous hero of the Trojan War.
22:07This is a scene from the Greek myth of Achilles, the famous hero of the Trojan War.
22:14HurRI is at the Greek myth of Achilles, and the Greek myth of Christ.
22:21It's a scene from the Greek myth, which is surrounded by a beautiful woman.
22:25And of course, it is a scene from the Greek myth of the person who is a female body.
22:30This is a scene from the Greek myth of the group of Achilles.
22:34Here we are on the stairs.
22:39the moment Odysseus discovers Achilles disguised as a woman.
23:09The paintings had a social function in this society, and you could show off your knowledge
23:23of Greek mythology.
23:25The basic message is, you know, I've made it.
23:28I'm part of this local elite, not only financially, but also culturally.
23:39It's interesting because it's an iconography that's quite well-known, not only Pompeii,
23:44but it's an iconography linked to the Emperor Nerone,
23:48one of the most important paintings of the Domus Sauro, Achilles Sciroc.
23:54Gennaro thinks this room was the main office from where the wholesale bakery was run.
24:01Clients and guests would have been greeted first by the impressive fresco.
24:08And then, by the manager, sat behind his imposing marble table.
24:15This room was the room of representation room where the manager, the libertarian,
24:29the client received, who gave them money, made contracts, etc.
24:37and then, by the way.
24:38Meanwhile, the hunt continues for solid evidence that people could have survived the eruption.
24:56Professor Stephen Tuck is joined by local Naples art historian Anne Pizzorosso to look for clues
25:03in one of Pompeii's storerooms.
25:07Visiting the repository of objects in Pompeii is, I think, a really important part of this research
25:13because it gives us the opportunity to analyse objects of daily life.
25:20This is the sort of material that doesn't normally survive,
25:23and it enables us to really understand these people and to reflect on their lives.
25:32So much bronze!
25:36Any other museum in the world, three of these would be all they would have.
25:40I know!
25:41Three of these.
25:42Lead archaeologist Alessandro Russo is showing Stephen a collection of pots that once belonged to a famous Pompeian family.
25:56Well, they may not look like much, but these are incredibly interesting vessels.
26:01They're plainware, but each of these is a vessel that held garum.
26:06Garum was a popular Roman condiment made from fermented fish.
26:13So the flower of garum, of mackerel, so we know it's what it's made out of.
26:25Crucially, the vessels don't just list the ingredients, but also who produced the garum.
26:31Scaris, and this is the third name of Aulus Mbruchius Scaris.
26:44This is just amazing.
26:47One third of all garum vessels found in and around Pompeii bear his name.
26:54Aulus Mbruchius Scaris is the most successful producer of fish sauce in Pompeii.
27:00Reading the names on it really takes it away from just being another piece of pottery.
27:07Suddenly I identify with them as human beings, and I think about, and I worry about, did they get out?
27:18It's a rare name in the entire Roman world, and that combination of first name Aulus and family name Umbruchius is unique to Pompeii.
27:28So I'm searching these databases of Roman inscriptions of Latin names, um, I got a hit, and I found a name.
27:43And with Anne's help, tracked down this particular inscription in a former factory that's now an office building.
27:50Stephen has come to Pozzuoli, 17 miles northwest of Pompeii.
27:58Ta-da!
28:05Oh, there we are!
28:07Aulus Mbruchius.
28:11This is the first time I've seen that name, Aulus Mbruchius, outside of Pompeii.
28:17Although this isn't Scouris' headstone, it is his unique family name.
28:26And Stephen is convinced this inscription commemorates a direct descendant.
28:32Aulus Mbruchius Mbruchius, the daughter of A. Mbruchius Magnus.
28:44So this must be a son of Scouris, and so she, the deceased, is the granddaughter.
28:54Dating to about 20 years after the eruption, Stephen believes this headstone is proof that members of Scouris' family survived the disaster.
29:04It says she lived a number of years, 15, 15 years old.
29:14Oh, that's, that's kind of heartbreaking.
29:20While Stephen can't say for sure what happened to the girl's grandfather, Scouris,
29:25he's convinced that the location of this inscription is a clue as to his fate.
29:31In Roman times, Pozzuali was called Puteoli.
29:38And Aulus Mbruchius Scouris might have had good reason to be here on the day of the eruption.
29:47In Roman times, there were these regional markets that would occur every eight days and in different locations.
29:54Traders from neighboring towns would gather to sell a range of commodities, wine, millstones and food.
30:04And most interestingly, a businessman wouldn't go by himself, but take his entire household.
30:12Following the traditional dating of the eruption, Stephen discovered that Puteoli might have hosted one of the regional markets on the day of the disaster.
30:21He believes traders from Pompeii could have been there, safe from the volcanic fallout.
30:32Scouris might not have been at home in Pompeii, but he and his family had been at Puteoli instead.
30:39Stephen's discovery reveals that some of Scouris' family probably did survive the eruption.
30:47But the premature death of his 15-year-old granddaughter shows the tragedy was never far away.
30:54This is incredibly moving to me.
30:58It gives me a great sense of connection to them as individuals who have made it out from this tremendous tragedy and now have suffered more personal tragedy.
31:07Meanwhile in the atrium, the team have cleared out all the pumice and volcanic material in the impluvium.
31:25An ornamental tank used to collect rainwater.
31:40And they've discovered it has a remarkable plumbing system.
31:44C'Γ¨ un piccolo distributore, un serbatoio con delle diramazioni, in cui la prima diramazione porta direttamente al centro della vasca dell'impluvio,
31:57molto probabilmente per un gioco d'acqua degli zampilli.
32:03Una seconda diramazione andava alle spalle della base, dove molto probabilmente c'era un puttino, quindi che faceva anche lui dei giochi d'acqua.
32:12E' incredibile come, osservando appunto questa tecnologia antica di 2000 anni fa, non Γ¨ distante dai giorni nostri.
32:24E' sembra costruita e pensata all'altro ieri.
32:29Further excavation has revealed something even more intriguing.
32:33Ma la sorpresa piΓΉ grande, asportando il lapillo, ci siamo accorti, seguendo la tubazione, che questa viene direttamente dalla casa accanto.
32:43The evidence suggests that the bakery and wealthy residents sourced their running water directly from the neighbouring building.
32:55But what was the next door building used for?
33:11When it was partially excavated in the 19th century, archaeologists found a deep basin instead of the usual shallow impluvium.
33:24Leading some to conclude this was a specialised Roman laundry known as a fullery.
33:30But Alessandro isn't convinced.
33:35Non basta la vasca.
33:37PerchΓ© nell'Ottocento l'hanno scavato.
33:39Gli oggetti che sono stati ritrovati non li conosciamo e non si sono conservati.
33:44E quindi servono degli indizi in piΓΉ.
33:50Working out if this was a fullery will help the team discover more about the whole building complex.
33:58So Alessandro has asked Dr Miko Flor, a world expert in Roman fulleries, to take a look.
34:05Just a few blocks south of the dig lies the fullery of Stephanus, one of the best preserved examples in the world.
34:18Pompeii is the only place where you will get the full picture of the fulling process.
34:24The fullery was the Roman equivalent of the dry cleaners.
34:38It was here rich Pompeians brought their expensive clothes to be cleaned.
34:42As a fuller you need to have the technical capacities to make sure that these garments stay as beautiful as they used to be.
34:55That the colours come out as bright as they were before.
34:59To clean the clothes fulleries used huge quantities of water and highly toxic chemicals including human urine.
35:07Original Pompeian frescoes, now at the Naples Archeological Museum, reveal the process in fascinating detail.
35:23In the fulling stalls where they do the first phase, where they stand with their feet in the chemicals and do the treatment of the clothes.
35:32In the second phase, you try to get rid of those chemicals.
35:37So you rinse and you make sure that everything is washed out, the chemicals and the dirt.
35:47The third phase requires the most skills.
35:52Clothes are being finished.
35:54And that means that their surface is being pressed.
35:59It's being treated so that it becomes smooth.
36:03And that makes the clothes quite warm and comfortable to wear.
36:12Miko is meeting Alessandro at the building adjoining the dig site.
36:17To work out if this really was a fullery.
36:20That's a fullery.
36:22And here we are.
36:24We are standing there.
36:25Fantastic, isn't it?
36:31It's this, which initially was called a vase but it would seem like a wall-in-the-ground wall.
36:39You see, it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.
36:42So, a wooden wall with a wooden board...
36:47...they are also here, with these big wooden boards.
37:09It kind of looks to me as something really different.
37:12It's clearly productive, but we don't really know what's going on.
37:16I think that's part of our fun, also.
37:20So, my starting point was skeptic.
37:23I came across a lot of places where people had found two or three basins...
37:28...and then they thought this should be a foolery.
37:40No, no, no.
37:44Oh, wait.
37:46May I comment on this?
37:48Yes.
37:49I think this is really fascinating.
37:51This is where my foolery alarm bells started wrinkling a little bit.
37:55They made a big drain that was coming right from there...
37:59...from the part that's not been excavated yet.
38:02Very clearly, this was an enormous quantity of water.
38:05This is not your normal drain. This is a serious drain.
38:12Yes.
38:16If it uses these quantities of water...
38:20...it can be a foolery.
38:24With this drain closely resembling the one at the back of the foolery of Stephanus...
38:28...Miko believes that this could be a foolery.
38:32It's a discovery that provides the team with valuable insights into the complex's owner.
38:39As running this sort of high-class laundry...
38:43...was a gateway to the upper ranks of Roman society.
38:48The private clientela of the foolery predominantly consisted of people with above-average socio-economic means.
39:00It gave you a way into society that made it possible to participate.
39:07Pompeii was a wealthy city.
39:09It was also a sharply unequal city.
39:12But it meant that life was relatively good for foolers in Pompeii.
39:21It seems the owner of this site was managing not one, but two successful businesses.
39:26A laundry and a bakery linked by a sophisticated plumbing system.
39:39But who was this entrepreneur?
39:41Gennaro has found a compelling clue at the base of this bakery millstone.
39:47ARV
39:55potrebbe anche essere un'indicazione per dare il nome al proprietario della casa.
40:02to the owner of the house.
40:12You're almost in contact with a person who's no longer
40:17but who has left traces everywhere.
40:22The team, having uncovered initials that could belong to the owner,
40:26hope they can soon identify his full name.
40:29Meanwhile, Stephen is also searching for names
40:33to provide hard evidence that people survived the eruption.
40:37He's focused on two successful wine merchants
40:41who lived in this ornate Roman townhouse.
40:44They're freed slaves.
40:46They're essentially nouveau riche.
40:48They've become very wealthy and prominent
40:51only after the earthquake of AD 62.
40:59We know their family name, Vetti,
41:05thanks to a personalised stamp
41:08probably used to mark their possessions.
41:11Aulus Vettius Restitutis and Aulus Vettius Conviva.
41:17While this stamp is a reproduction,
41:19archaeologists found the original in the Vetti's luxurious home.
41:23These stamps are really important for identifying home ownership.
41:29They're relatively valuable to an individual,
41:34but in the greater sense,
41:36in the running and screaming of an eruption,
41:38they're the sort of thing that gets left behind
41:40as you're grabbing your gold and your household gods and so on.
41:44Stephen's research has found an ancient Roman gravestone
41:54that bears the Vetti name.
41:56It's located 12 miles north of Pompeii,
41:59in the back streets of the small town of Norla.
42:03Hunting for these inscriptions has been really
42:06an intriguing part of the entire process.
42:09So many of them are not in museums.
42:13They're in sometimes curious, unexpected places.
42:18Okay, I know it's around here somewhere.
42:22Okay, all right.
42:23But believe me.
42:24I know it's in a medical center.
42:27Here.
42:28Centro Diagnostico Medicina Nuclea.
42:31Here we go.
42:32This inscription dates to roughly 20 years after the eruption.
42:45Look at it, look at this.
42:47Vetia Sabina.
42:49Vetia Sabina.
42:50Vetia Sabina.
42:52Telling us that members of the Vetia's family survived.
42:56And it gets better.
42:58We see the name of her husband, Marcus Tullius Dionysus.
43:05Dionysus.
43:06I like that name.
43:07Another Pompeian name,
43:09with a completely different social profile.
43:12So he belongs to an old money family
43:15that had been prominent for decades.
43:18And she belongs to a family,
43:20which is, we would say, nouveau riche.
43:23You know, recently wealthy.
43:25It's almost Jane Austen here.
43:28So I think this is a clear sign of survivor intermarriage.
43:33Right.
43:34They get out and they intermarry.
43:38The inscription tells Stephen
43:40that Sabina and her husband met as refugees
43:43in the years after the disaster.
43:49But just as they were rebuilding their lives,
43:52tragedy struck.
43:56And then the final line, of course, is her age.
43:58Okay.
43:59She died at the age of 24.
44:00Okay.
44:01Three months and 22 days.
44:05Okay.
44:06So, yeah.
44:07She died, I would say, at 24, unexpectedly.
44:11Pure speculation here.
44:13What do you think?
44:14Childbirth?
44:15Even the people that own this building,
44:33where the inscription is,
44:35had no idea what it said,
44:37and certainly not what it meant.
44:40My research, it's really about telling the stories,
44:43not just the disaster or the destruction,
44:46but of the survival,
44:48of the rebuilding of lives.
44:52Stephen's research is proving for the first time
44:54that there was life after the eruption.
44:57It's not just the destruction.
45:03But to survive,
45:04people would have had to overcome incredible odds.
45:09Just fleeing the city would not have been enough.
45:14The difference between life or death
45:17was knowing which way to run.
45:28So, as Vesuvius continued to erupt,
45:30the residents here at Pompeii had decisions to make.
45:44And many of them made what seemed like the logical choice
45:46at that time,
45:48to go southwards towards the Bay of Naples,
45:52towards the sea.
45:53But that was the wrong choice.
45:59Because the sea at that time was dangerous for two reasons.
46:02One, is it was coated in pumice.
46:06And also, the wind was blowing onshore towards Vesuvius,
46:09meaning it had been difficult to almost impossible
46:12to sail away from trouble.
46:16Counter-intuitively, what they really needed to do
46:18was head northwards,
46:20around the volcano,
46:21and then westwards towards Naples.
46:24So, it's a cruel irony
46:26that our natural instinct, really,
46:28is to head away from danger.
46:41Stephen believes the survivors who headed north
46:44probably stayed in the area.
46:47So, he and Anne follow the northern escape route to Naples.
46:55Of course, return to Pompeii is impossible.
46:58The city is levelled.
46:59It is destroyed.
47:01The survivors from Pompeii aren't just that.
47:03They aren't just survivors.
47:05They're also refugees.
47:07They need to settle somewhere.
47:08In the area north of Vesuvius, in the two decades after the eruption,
47:19public infrastructure skyrockets.
47:25All of this new infrastructure really seems to give us great evidence for larger populations.
47:30And that really, I think, opens up the possibility that more people did survive.
47:39To Stephen, this building boom is evidence that a sudden influx of refugees from Pompeii needed rehousing.
47:47In the back streets of Naples, a little-known archaeological site offers another crucial clue.
48:02Oh, wow!
48:06Oh, wow!
48:08I had no idea this existed.
48:14Oh, this is just extraordinary.
48:17Oh, so this is obviously a residential complex, like an apartment house.
48:22Oh, I see at least three, possibly four stories tall.
48:29You can see the concrete core and the brick on the outside.
48:34That's wonderful, because it dates this right after the eruption.
48:45Do you see this in the wall there?
48:46Oh, yes! Look it! Look it!
48:47Yeah, the terracotta drain.
48:48So that means they had water.
48:51Hmm.
48:52Okay.
48:53All right, I sound like a real estate agent.
48:55Fully decorated.
48:57Hot and cold running water.
48:59Well, probably not hot.
49:00Good views.
49:02We can't know for sure who lived here,
49:05but this is really suggestive of the sort of complex built for the people that we do know survived Vesuvius
49:14and got out of Pompeii and moved to Naples.
49:16Stephen's investigation suggests that it wasn't just a few wealthy individuals who survived the eruption in AD 79,
49:28but that a much larger number of people escaped Pompeii.
49:31So many, in fact, that the emperor Titus visited to donate money to fund the new buildings.
49:43This inscription celebrates his generosity.
49:46We can see right there, Titus Caesar. He restored something that had collapsed. It's right after the eruption.
49:58There we go. So...
49:59Oh, I think it's the, your tax dollars at work here sign.
50:09Back at the dig, the team have made an exciting discovery, unearthing large fragments of a highly decorated fresco.
50:18They believe it came from the upper floor of the building.
50:26Like most houses in Pompeii, the upper floors collapsed and were totally destroyed in the eruption.
50:33Alessandro and Auxilia carefully reconstruct the beautiful fresco.
50:40This one, this one.
50:59Ah, that one.
51:00Let's put this one.
51:01And then there's this vegetation a bit in the middle oriental.
51:05Yes, they look like palms.
51:06They look like palms.
51:07Yes.
51:08Palms.
51:09In the center is an exotic religious ceremony set in the Middle East.
51:16Yes, that's the sacred place.
51:18And here's the sacred temple.
51:19Yes, there's the sacred temple.
51:20With the images of the divinity.
51:23Now we'll put this on the left.
51:25Yes.
51:26It's beautiful.
51:27This is perfect.
51:28It's a beautiful wall.
51:29It's a very beautiful wall.
51:30Look at this one.
51:31Zepa?
51:32Yes, the spessor.
51:34Fantastic.
51:37If only there's left one, there's no part.
51:39Oh, no.
51:40Damn.
51:41I'm so sorry.
51:42Let's go.
51:44Let's go.
51:46Let's go.
51:48Let's go.
51:50Perfect.
51:52But the scene in first piano seems complete.
51:54Yes.
51:56There are all sorts of characters.
51:58Yes.
52:00Let's go.
52:02Let's go.
52:04Let's go.
52:06Here is the accepcion.
52:08And then this amphora.
52:10This amphora is an amphora.
52:12This amphora is an amphora.
52:14It is an amphora of the wine.
52:16Yes.
52:18These musicians.
52:20With these instruments.
52:22These are clearly identifiable.
52:24The flute.
52:26And the flute.
52:28Where is it?
52:34The surprise here.
52:36Is that the artist didn't paint the fresco on a wall.
52:38But directly onto a ceiling.
52:42Pensa a tutto questo a testa in su.
52:44Esatto.
52:45In alto su.
52:46Un ponteggio a testa in su.
52:48Incredibile perchΓ© occhio nudo si leggono le pennellate.
52:52Anche la sovrapposizione si Γ¨ fatto.
52:54Quindi la volontΓ di dare anche una sorta di tridimensionalitΓ .
52:59This kind of artistry far exceeds anything else found in the dig so far.
53:05And the team believe that only the super wealthy.
53:08Just the top 1% of Pompei's population.
53:11Could have afforded this kind of painting.
53:14Chiaramente il livello qualitativo Γ¨ molto differente.
53:19Eccezionale.
53:21Degno delle migliori realizzazioni di Pompei.
53:27Quindi al piano di sopra c'Γ¨ un ambiente di...
53:32Di lusso possiamo poter dire.
53:34Sì.
53:35Sì.
53:36Sì.
53:37Sì.
53:38Sì.
53:39Sì.
53:40Sì.
53:41Sì.
53:42Sì.
53:43Sì.
53:44Sì.
53:45Sì.
53:46Sì.
53:47Sì.
53:48Sì.
53:49Sì.
53:50Sì.
53:51Sì.
53:52Sì.
53:53Sì.
53:54Sì.
53:55Sì.
53:56Sì.
53:57Sì.
53:58Sì.
53:59Sì.
54:00Sì.
54:01Sì.
54:02Sì.
54:03Sì.
54:04Sì.
54:05Sì.
54:06Sì.
54:07Sì.
54:08Sì.
54:09Sì.
54:10Sì.
54:11Sì.
54:12Sì.
54:13Sì.
54:14Sì.
54:15Sì.
54:16Sì.
54:17Sì.
54:18evidence that the eruption interrupted major renovation work as builders were
54:24refurbishing the living area with sculpted roof gutters, highly decorated
54:30fresco walls and expensive marble furniture. This is a place where rich and
54:39poor were living and working cheek by jiao.
54:44We are faced with a much more rich house than the one we have excavated. This
54:51brings us to an observation, an eruption. It does not make a difference between social classes.
54:59It is very democratic, the eruption destroys everyone.
55:14Several hours after the volcano had started to erupt, the ash column had continued to
55:21grow. And it is estimated that it reached about 32km into the air. Eventually in the middle
55:32of the night there was a change in the eruption behaviour. There would have been a pause. Ash
55:40was still falling but maybe at a lower rate. At that moment people maybe thought that the
55:46eruption had finished. The residents of Pompeii may have actually taken heart from that. But
55:54what people did not know is that magma was no longer being taken from the upper part of
55:59the magma chain below Vesuvius, but from deeper depths where there were less volatiles, less
56:04water, less gas to drive the eruption. This meant the volcano was unable to sustain the eruption column anymore.
56:16The upward thrust of the volcano wasn't enough to keep all of that material suspended.
56:22And as that eruption column collapsed, it formed something much more deadly than ash, pyroclastic flows.
56:44For the people who had made the decision to stay, to hide indoors during the earliest phase of the eruption,
56:51it was too late to exit the city itself.
56:57Where people who maybe thought they had escaped the worst of the volcanic eruption were only then
57:02finding out exactly how bad things were going to get.
57:23Next time, as the eruption enters its deadliest phase, the team uncover the last terrifying moments inside the building.
57:33They discover, as hope faded, residents desperately searched for salvation.
57:47Some pray to the gods, others were just lost in this darkness and hopelessness.
57:54And they uncover a whole new world of wealth.
57:58Let's wait for big surprises.
58:17alive!
58:29Atavali
58:33The phenomenon ofgenes
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