The Mysterious Bodies in Pompeii

BY NHI VUONG

A volcanic eruption in A.D. 79 buried the inhabitants of Pompeii under a 20-foot layer of ash and sediment. Dozens of the corpses retained their shapes long enough, creating hollow layers of debris with the decaying tissue inside. Starting in 1863, archaeologists filled the cavities with plaster. A group consisting of a child and two adults became known as the Family of the House of the Golden Bracelet. A pair of bodies locked in a saddening embrace were famously named the Two Maidens. Based on recent DNA evidence, the identities and relationships of these mysterious bodies do not match the assumptions. While others assumed that the “Two Maidens” were sisters, or mother and daughter, one of them was genetically male. Lately, some researchers believe they were actually an adult male and a boy who were biologically unrelated. Alissa, a geneticist at the Harvard lab, stated, “It could have been that these were servants or slaves, or the children might have been the servants or slaves who also inhabited the house.” She acknowledged that the two figures could have been lovers, so the interpretation was not, in fact, what researchers saw scientifically. A famous actress known as the Pregnant Woman was proved not to be pregnant and might not have even been a woman after being tested under a CT scan. All of these misinterpretations simply prove that maybe our creative minds are not always correct, and our imaginations can get out of hand.

Cites – https://www.nytimes.com