Located about 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) southeast of Naples in what’s now Italy’s Campania region, Pompeii was geographically ideal due to its port, according to the study. While the Greeks, Etruscans and Samnites attempted to conquer it, Pompeii ...

In mere minutes, the giant cloud of ash and gases killed an estimated 2,000 people, many of whom were unearthed more than a thousand years later. Their decomposed bodies were preserved by the ash, and archaeologists were able to reconstruct their forms using plaster casts of the cavities they left behind. More than 100 casts have been made to date.

A family frozen in time by the volcanic eruption that hit Pompeii nearly two millennia ago. A mother, a father, and two children…one of the many stories invented by observers of the plaster casts made of the victims of the tragedy that struck the ancient town.