IN A FIRST, WE CAN READ WORDS FROM A VESUVIUS-CHARRED PAPYRUS

FOR the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile.

Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans.

They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

The work appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The resort town of Herculaneum, sometimes called "the other Pompeii", was similarly buried in ash by Vesuvius. A remarkable library of scrolls was excavated from one of its villas in the 18th Century.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, involved special strategies for unravelling the scrolls as delicately as possible.

Although some unrolled fragments have been read successfully, particularly in recent years with the help of infra-red cameras, such unwinding efforts were eventually abandoned because of how much of the scrolls they destroyed.

Some other efforts to peer inside the rolled-up scrolls using CT scans have revealed the shape of the ancient, coiled layers - but never successfully deciphered their contents.

Now, a team led by Dr Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy, has identified a handful of Greek letters within a rolled-up scroll for the very first time.

The key to the discovery was a technique called "X-ray phase-contrast tomography", most commonly used in medicine.

In fact, when Dr Mocella's team placed one of the scrolls - carefully - in the path of a very bright X-ray beam from the synchrotron, it was bumps on the paper rather than chemicals in the ink that yielded the long-hidden letters.

"So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top."

It was this extra thickness - just a tenth of a millimetre - that revealed the strokes of the letters, even after volcanic incineration and two millennia underground.

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

"I don't think the technique is perfect," said Dr Mocella, who is already planning more experiments to improve it.

IN A FIRST, WE CAN READ WORDS FROM A VESUVIUS-CHARRED PAPYRUS

FOR the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile.

Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans.

They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

The work appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The resort town of Herculaneum, sometimes called "the other Pompeii", was similarly buried in ash by Vesuvius. A remarkable library of scrolls was excavated from one of its villas in the 18th Century.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, involved special strategies for unravelling the scrolls as delicately as possible.

Although some unrolled fragments have been read successfully, particularly in recent years with the help of infra-red cameras, such unwinding efforts were eventually abandoned because of how much of the scrolls they destroyed.

Some other efforts to peer inside the rolled-up scrolls using CT scans have revealed the shape of the ancient, coiled layers - but never successfully deciphered their contents.

Now, a team led by Dr Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy, has identified a handful of Greek letters within a rolled-up scroll for the very first time.

The key to the discovery was a technique called "X-ray phase-contrast tomography", most commonly used in medicine.

In fact, when Dr Mocella's team placed one of the scrolls - carefully - in the path of a very bright X-ray beam from the synchrotron, it was bumps on the paper rather than chemicals in the ink that yielded the long-hidden letters.

"So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top."

It was this extra thickness - just a tenth of a millimetre - that revealed the strokes of the letters, even after volcanic incineration and two millennia underground.

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

"I don't think the technique is perfect," said Dr Mocella, who is already planning more experiments to improve it.

IN A FIRST, WE CAN READ WORDS FROM A VESUVIUS-CHARRED PAPYRUS

FOR the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile.

Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans.

They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

The work appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The resort town of Herculaneum, sometimes called "the other Pompeii", was similarly buried in ash by Vesuvius. A remarkable library of scrolls was excavated from one of its villas in the 18th Century.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, involved special strategies for unravelling the scrolls as delicately as possible.

Although some unrolled fragments have been read successfully, particularly in recent years with the help of infra-red cameras, such unwinding efforts were eventually abandoned because of how much of the scrolls they destroyed.

Some other efforts to peer inside the rolled-up scrolls using CT scans have revealed the shape of the ancient, coiled layers - but never successfully deciphered their contents.

Now, a team led by Dr Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy, has identified a handful of Greek letters within a rolled-up scroll for the very first time.

The key to the discovery was a technique called "X-ray phase-contrast tomography", most commonly used in medicine.

In fact, when Dr Mocella's team placed one of the scrolls - carefully - in the path of a very bright X-ray beam from the synchrotron, it was bumps on the paper rather than chemicals in the ink that yielded the long-hidden letters.

"So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top."

It was this extra thickness - just a tenth of a millimetre - that revealed the strokes of the letters, even after volcanic incineration and two millennia underground.

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

"I don't think the technique is perfect," said Dr Mocella, who is already planning more experiments to improve it.

DID ANTINOUS EAT PIZZA?

DID Antinous eat pizza? 

Archaeologists in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have uncovered a fresco which depicts what might be the ancestor of the Italian pizza. 

The flatbread depicted in the 2,000-year-old fresco "may be a distant ancestor of the modern dish," Italy's culture ministry said. 

The fresco in the hall of a house next to a bakery confirms that, even if it didn't have mozarella, tomatoes, pineapple or jalapenos, the Romans knew something similar in the 1st Century AD!

Did you know that pizza was invented by Aeneas? The origin of pizza is in Virgil's Aeneid! 

The hero Aeneas sails the seas with other fugitives from Troy. They seek a new home. They are starving when they land on the shores of Italy. They only have some stale round loaves of bread to eat. 

They collect some "fruits of the field" (cheese? herbs? garlic?) and put these on top of the thin base. 

"Hey! We're even eating our tables!" says Ascanius, the son of Aeneas. (Heus! Etiam mensas consumimus inquit Iulus!)

Immediately, Aeneas remembers a prophecy: When you arrive at a place so tired and hungry that you eat your tables, you will know you have reached your promised land. 

Antinous remembers this story when he and Hadrian order pizza ... delivered by their lararium winged genius! So when you eat pizza, remember to quote the words of the son of Aeneas: Heus! Etiam mensas consumimus!

IN A FIRST, WE CAN READ WORDS FROM A VESUVIUS-CHARRED PAPYRUS

FOR the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile.

Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans.

They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

The work appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The resort town of Herculaneum, sometimes called "the other Pompeii", was similarly buried in ash by Vesuvius. A remarkable library of scrolls was excavated from one of its villas in the 18th Century.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, involved special strategies for unravelling the scrolls as delicately as possible.

Although some unrolled fragments have been read successfully, particularly in recent years with the help of infra-red cameras, such unwinding efforts were eventually abandoned because of how much of the scrolls they destroyed.

Some other efforts to peer inside the rolled-up scrolls using CT scans have revealed the shape of the ancient, coiled layers - but never successfully deciphered their contents.

Now, a team led by Dr Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy, has identified a handful of Greek letters within a rolled-up scroll for the very first time.

The key to the discovery was a technique called "X-ray phase-contrast tomography", most commonly used in medicine.

In fact, when Dr Mocella's team placed one of the scrolls - carefully - in the path of a very bright X-ray beam from the synchrotron, it was bumps on the paper rather than chemicals in the ink that yielded the long-hidden letters.

"So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top."

It was this extra thickness - just a tenth of a millimetre - that revealed the strokes of the letters, even after volcanic incineration and two millennia underground.

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

"I don't think the technique is perfect," said Dr Mocella, who is already planning more experiments to improve it.

A POMPEII GREEK FREED MAN WHO REFUSED TO BE CREMATED LEAVES ARCHAEOLOGICAL LEGACY

A Greek freed slave who defied the Roman cremation custom and was mummified after death has provided archaeologists with the most remarkable tomb ever found at Pompeii.

The partially mummified remains of Marcus Venerius Secundio, including hair and bones, were found in a tomb at the necropolis of Porta Sarno, which was one of the main entrance gates into the city. 

The tomb is believed to date back to the decades before Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

What have been described as the best-preserved human remains ever discovered in Pompeii include Secundio's white hair and a partially visible ear. Initial tests show he died at about the age of 60.

Archaeologists said the discovery was unusual because deceased adults during Roman times were usually cremated. A glass urn with the name of a woman, Novia Amabilis, possibly Secundio's wife, was also found in the tomb.

"Pompeii never ceases to amaze," said Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister.

Secundio was a slave and the custodian of ancient Pompeii's Temple of Venus. After being freed from slavery, he joined the ranks of the Augustales, a college of priests who were in charge of a form of emperor worship.

The fact that he was buried in a tomb proves he succeeded in achieving a good social and economic position.

Furthermore, an inscription dedicated to Secundio on a marble slab found at the top of the tomb makes references to theatre performances in Pompeii that were conducted in Greek. 

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of Pompeii archaeological park, said the inscription was "the first clear evidence of performances at Pompeii in the Greek language."

"That performances in Greek were organised is evidence of the lively and open cultural climate which characterised ancient Pompeii," added Zuchtriegel.

INSCRIPTION SUGGESTS VESUVIUS ERUPTED IN OCTOBER, NOT AUGUST

AUGUST 24th (or alternatively October 24th) generally has been accepted as the date of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD ... until now.

Now, graffiti written in charcoal has been uncovered which bears the date October 17th ... proving that Pompeiians were alive and well two months after the supposed destruction of the city. This discovery lends credence to the alternative date of October 24th in the year 79 AD.

Translated, it says: "On October 17th, he over-indulged in food ...."

Italy's culture minister labelled it "an extraordinary discovery."

The August 24th date was based on ancient writings that purported to share first-hand accounts.

They came from Pliny the Younger, an elite lawyer and author of ancient Rome, who wrote about the death of his even more famous uncle, Pliny the Elder.

"On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud..." he wrote in a letter to Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian, about the events of that day."

Pliny wrote this eye-witness account to his friend Tacitus:

"... Behind us were frightening dark clouds, rent by lightning twisted and hurled, opening to reveal huge figures of flame. These were like lightning, but bigger .... It wasn't long  thereafter that the cloud stretched down to the ground and covered the sea ... Now came the ash, though still thinly. I look back: a dense cloud looms behind us, following us like a flood poured across the land .... 

"Someone said: 'Let us turn aside while we can still see, lest we be knocked over in the street and crushed by the crowd of our companions.' We had scarcely sat down when a darkness came that was not like a moonless or cloudy night, but more like the black of closed and unlighted rooms. You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. 

"Some were calling for parents, others for children or spouses; they could only recognize them by their voices. Some bemoaned their own lot, other that of their near and dear. There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. Many raised their hands to the gods, and even more believed that there were no gods any longer and that this was one last unending night for the world."

According to his account, Pliny the Elder was then a fleet commander at Misenum - modern day Miseno - across the bay from Pompeii. He took a ship to stage a rescue for those in danger from the volcano.

But he did not return from the venture.

Pliny the Younger, meanwhile, watched the destruction unfold from the other side of the bay.

"I have faithfully related to you what I was either an eye-witness of myself or received immediately after the accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth," he wrote.

But the latest discovery calls such certainty into question.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN POMPEII FIND BLOODY GLADIATOR FRESCO

THIS spectacular fresco of two Roman gladiators has been unearthed in Pompeii, just days before the anniversary of the 24 October 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius.

The gruesome fresco shows one gladiator standing triumphant as his opponent staggers ... one arm having been hacked off ... blood spurting profusely from numerous horrific wounds.

He has raised his index finger in the gesture known as "missio" ... "mercy" ... to spare his life.

Culture Minister Dario Franceschini expressed delight after archaeologists uncovered the fresco of what he described as "Two gladiators at the end of a fight."

"It is an unprecedented discovery by Pompeii archaeologists who, for the first time since 79 AD, are excavating an area of Pompeii never investigated before.

"It is a wonder that the whole world will admire."

IN A FIRST, WE CAN READ WORDS FROM A VESUVIUS-CHARRED PAPYRUS

FOR the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The scrolls of Herculaneum, the only classical library still in existence, were blasted by volcanic gas hotter than 300C and are desperately fragile.

Deep inside one scroll, physicists distinguished the ink from the paper using a 3D X-ray imaging technique sometimes used in breast scans.

They believe that other scrolls could also be deciphered without unrolling.

The work appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The resort town of Herculaneum, sometimes called "the other Pompeii", was similarly buried in ash by Vesuvius. A remarkable library of scrolls was excavated from one of its villas in the 18th Century.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, involved special strategies for unravelling the scrolls as delicately as possible.

Although some unrolled fragments have been read successfully, particularly in recent years with the help of infra-red cameras, such unwinding efforts were eventually abandoned because of how much of the scrolls they destroyed.

Some other efforts to peer inside the rolled-up scrolls using CT scans have revealed the shape of the ancient, coiled layers - but never successfully deciphered their contents.

Now, a team led by Dr Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy, has identified a handful of Greek letters within a rolled-up scroll for the very first time.

The key to the discovery was a technique called "X-ray phase-contrast tomography", most commonly used in medicine.

In fact, when Dr Mocella's team placed one of the scrolls - carefully - in the path of a very bright X-ray beam from the synchrotron, it was bumps on the paper rather than chemicals in the ink that yielded the long-hidden letters.

"So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top."

It was this extra thickness - just a tenth of a millimetre - that revealed the strokes of the letters, even after volcanic incineration and two millennia underground.

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

"I don't think the technique is perfect," said Dr Mocella, who is already planning more experiments to improve it.

POMPEII AMULETS, TALISMANS REVEAL HOW MAGIC PERVADED ROMAN LIFE

Archaeologists have found a cache of apotropaic amulets, talismans, crystals and other propitiatory paraphernalia in Pompeii which demonstrate how magic pervaded life in Ancient Rome.

While tabloid headlines scream that the cache represents "witch's treasure trove", most serious experts point out the Ancient Romans routinely wore charms and filled their homes with religio-magical items designed to ward off evil and attract fertility, health and good fortune.

In this case, the items were contained in a trunk at a Pompeii home, site director Massimo Osanna said.

The objects included crystals, amber and amethyst stones, buttons made of bones, beetles from the orient, amulets, dolls, bells, miniature penises (known as "fascinus" good-luck charms), fists to repel evil, and even a tiny fetish skull for use in a magical spell.

See the photos below!

They were found at the Villa del Giardino, the same area where an inscription was recently uncovered that made historians change the date of when they think the Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii took place, shifting it from 24 August to 24 October 79 AD.


"There are dozens of good luck charms next to other objects that were attributed with the power of crushing bad luck," Osanna told ANSA the Italian news agency, adding that he thinks that it is more likely that the objects belonged to a servant or slave than the owner of the house. 

Indeed, the chest did not include the gold that the all the wealthy people of Pompeii loved to wear. 

"They could have been necklaces that were worn during rituals rather being used to look elegant," said Osanna. 

The experts say the objects may have been used in rituals for fertility, seduction, or to seek good omens for a birth or pregnancy, while stressing that this is just a hypothesis.

WE KNOW ABOUT THE VESUVIUS VICTIMS BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO ESCAPED?

EVERYONE knows about the victims of Pompeii's Vesuvius eruption ... whose bodies were immortalized as plaster casts.

But what about the thousands of residents who successfully fled the doomed city? What happened to them?

Now historian Steven Tuck of Miami University says he has created a database of Roman last names which has helped him to track down the refugees from the disaster of 79 AD.

His database has led him to match up records from Pompeii and Herculaneum with records from the parts of Italy unaffected by the destructive power of Vesuvius. 

Tuck's goal in doing this work was not just to identify refugees but also "to draw conclusions about who survived the eruption, where they relocated, why they went to certain communities, and what this pattern tells us about how the ancient Roman world worked socially, economically, and politically."

In order to find refugees, Tuck needed to investigate inscriptions on public buildings and tombstones, because historical records only emphasized the physical damage of disasters.

"I looked for names at Pompeii that were prominent in the later years of the city and inscriptions that were as near as possible post-80 AD in the 'refuge communities'" elsewhere in Italy, Tuck explains.

As an example, there are six people from the family Caninia known from 2nd Century AD inscriptions at Neapolis (modern Naples).

That last name appears earlier at Herculaneum but essentially nowhere else, suggesting the family moved because of Vesuvius.

Tuck makes an even stronger connection, though, for a particular member of this family: Marcus Caninius Botrio, whose name is recorded in the Album of Herculaneum.

It is likely that Botrio "is the best surviving evidence of a specific individual from Herculaneum who resettled at Neapolis as a refugee, and then died there as attested by his tomb inscription," Tuck notes.

Another example Tuck presents comes from Roman Dacia, an area of the Empire that is now Romania and Serbia.

On a tombstone there dated to 87 AD, an inscription lists one Cornelius Fuscus, who was a citizen at Pompeii, lived at Neapolis, and was stationed in Dacia as a praetorian prefect who led five legions in Domitian's war. Fuscus "seems to have resettled from Pompeii to Neapolis after the eruption," Tuck concludes.

Tuck's combination of history and archaeology has produced strong evidence that it is possible to trace Vesuvian refugees.

He finds that many refugees settled on the north side of the Bay of Naples, and that families tended to move together and then to marry within their refugee community. 

These people probably "represent either those who fled at the first sign of the eruption," Tuck says, "or those who were away from the cities when the eruption occurred."

SPECTACULAR NARCISSUS FRESCO DISCOVERED IN POMPEII ATRIUM

A stunning fresco depicting Narcissus looking at his reflection in a reed-filled pool has been uncovered during new excavations at Pompeii.

The discovery was made during a dig at the Regio V section of the ancient Roman city, the interim director of the archaeological site, Alfonsina Russo, announced.

The find comes just months after the unearthing of another spectacular fresco, depicting Jupiter taking the form of a swan to impregnate Spartan queen Leda. (photo at right) 

"The beauty of these rooms have led us to change our project and continue the excavation," Russo said.

"In the future it will be possible to open up at least a part of this domus for the public to enjoy."

Officials noted archaeologists also found inside the ancient atrium a dozen glass containers, eight terracotta vases and a bronze funnel in a space underneath a staircase.

THREE POMPEII HORSES WERE HARNESSED FOR ESCAPE FROM VESUVIUS ERUPTION

A third horse has been found saddled and ready to ride ... bringing to three the number of horse cadavers found in a Pompeii villa's stable that were harnessed for a frantic escape ... when they tragically were overtaken by the Vesuvius eruption.

Two of the horses had made headlines earlier this year, but the remains of the third horse had been too incomplete to determine whether it was also harnessed at the time of death.

Further examination determined that it too had been wearing a bit and bridle.

When the volcano erupted in 79 AD, many of the town's residents and animals collapsed and died in place after being struck with waves of superheated poisonous gas and ash, called a pyroclastic surge. 

Their decaying bodies then left hauntingly shaped voids in the hardened ash layer. Plaster casts were made of the horses.

Evidence for bits and bridles around the two cast horses suggests that they were harnessed by people trying to flee the eruption, says Massimo Osanna, general director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

INSCRIPTION SUGGESTS VESUVIUS ERUPTED IN OCTOBER, NOT AUGUST

AUGUST 24th (or alternatively October 24th) generally has been accepted as the date of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD ... until now.

Now, graffiti written in charcoal has been uncovered which bears the date October 17th ... proving that Pompeiians were alive and well two months after the supposed destruction of the city. This discovery lends credence to the alternative date of October 24th in the year 79 AD.

Translated, it says: "On October 17th, he over-indulged in food ...."

Italy's culture minister labelled it "an extraordinary discovery."

The August 24th date was based on ancient writings that purported to share first-hand accounts.

They came from Pliny the Younger, an elite lawyer and author of ancient Rome, who wrote about the death of his even more famous uncle, Pliny the Elder.

"On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud..." he wrote in a letter to Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian, about the events of that day."

Pliny wrote this eye-witness account to his friend Tacitus:

"... Behind us were frightening dark clouds, rent by lightning twisted and hurled, opening to reveal huge figures of flame. These were like lightning, but bigger .... It wasn't long  thereafter that the cloud stretched down to the ground and covered the sea ... Now came the ash, though still thinly. I look back: a dense cloud looms behind us, following us like a flood poured across the land .... 

"Someone said: 'Let us turn aside while we can still see, lest we be knocked over in the street and crushed by the crowd of our companions.' We had scarcely sat down when a darkness came that was not like a moonless or cloudy night, but more like the black of closed and unlighted rooms. You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. 

"Some were calling for parents, others for children or spouses; they could only recognize them by their voices. Some bemoaned their own lot, other that of their near and dear. There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. Many raised their hands to the gods, and even more believed that there were no gods any longer and that this was one last unending night for the world."

According to his account, Pliny the Elder was then a fleet commander at Misenum - modern day Miseno - across the bay from Pompeii. He took a ship to stage a rescue for those in danger from the volcano.

But he did not return from the venture.

Pliny the Younger, meanwhile, watched the destruction unfold from the other side of the bay.

"I have faithfully related to you what I was either an eye-witness of myself or received immediately after the accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth," he wrote.

But the latest discovery calls such certainty into question.

POMPEII HOUSE'S ENCHANTED GARDEN HAS FRESCOES OF PEACOCKS, SERPENTS

STUNNING frescoes depicting peacocks,writhing snakes and a wild boar being hunted by dogs have been discovered in Pompeii, 2,000 years after the Roman city was buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

The colourful frescoes were discovered in a villa dubbed “The House of the Enchanted Garden” for the variety of animals and plants that decorate its walls, which was partially excavated in the 19th century.

But the frescoed room had remained undiscovered until now.

The blood-red paint that adorns the walls is almost as lustrous as before the villa was smothered in volcanic ash and pumice in AD 79.

Archeologists found an altar in a niche in one of the walls, guarded by two serpents to ward off evil spirits and demons.

“It is a marvelous and enigmatic space,” said Massimo Osanna, the director of the archeological site. “It will need to be studied in great detail.”

The frescoes include the figure of a horse, birds in flight and a strange human figure with a dog’s head.

The remains of the villa came to light during the latest phase of excavations at the ancient site, located south of Naples.

As part of the Great Pompeii Project, areas that have never before been dug, or which were partially excavated in the 19th century, are being explored.

The main room is believed to be a lararium, a room designed to hold the images of the lares, divine protectors of the villa and the Roman family that occupied it.

Marble or bronze statues of gods would have been placed in the niche. Archeologists found burn marks on the stone altar, evidence of the offerings that the household would have made to honour their gods.

“This lararium is one of the most elegant to have emerged at Pompeii,” archeologists said in a press release.

The two giant snakes that are depicted on the wall were not only to ward off demons but also “symbols of prosperity and good auspices.”

The image of two dogs chasing a fierce black boar “seems to allude symbolically to the victory of the forces of good over the forces of evil.”