ARCHAEOLOGISTS have revealed lost parts of Pompeii that were once a symbol of mega wealth among the doomed city’s elite.
Experts have been baffled for years after finding a staircase that seemingly led to nowhere.
But clever non-invasive digital techniques have shown the glorious structures that once stood over Pompeii.
The famed city was devastated by the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius volcano in AD 79, killing thousands.
A thick layer of molten rock, ash and debris filled everything in its path, topping around five meters high.
This turned what were once the ground floors of homes into cellars, while many higher levels were lost.
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Survivors returned after the eruption in AD 79 and used the cellars for ovens and mills – but they fled again after another eruption rocked the city.
Since excavations on the area began in the mid-1700s they’ve largely focused on the lower floors where precious items were preserved in the ash, as well as the remains of victims.
It was long believed that the top floors were for slaves and poor citizens.
But fresh research has shed a whole new light on Pompeii’s skyline.
And in the process, experts realised that the richest also used rooms on the upper floors with expensive furnishings.
The team of scientists from Humboldt University of Berlin started a project called POMPEII RESET in which they looked at the Casa del Tiaso – or the House of the Thiasos – a lavish Roman house.
Using the evidence they had from material, scans and clever 3D models they were able to build a picture of what the house looked liked in its full glory.
In one of the rooms there is a huge stone staircase that led to a second floor.
Marks were found on the walls towards the top, suggesting that another staircase made of wood may have led to even more floors.
They concluded that the building must have had a vast tower on top.
“The unique findings in the Casa del Tiaso now lead us to believe that such towers also existed in cities as an element of wealthy residential architecture that sought to imitate the magnificent villa architecture and with which the homeowner wanted to represent his social status from afar,” Dr Susanne Muth, a professor from Humboldt University of Berlin’s Institute for Archaeology told CNN.
This would have allowed the wealthy to have an unrivalled view over the city, as well as the Bay of Naples, when hosting lavish banquets.
The tower at Casa del Tiaso may have been 40-foot-tall and had several floors.
The translated study says that the interior of the lower part was “simple in its furnishing” which was contrasted “by the monumental external staircase that leads to the upper floor, suggesting a living space of a more elegant and representative character”.
Experts are now on the hunt for evidence of anymore houses that may have once had towers too.
The destruction of Pompeii – what happened in 79 AD?
- Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy.
- It was destroyed, along with the Roman town of Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, and buried under volcanic ash in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
- The violent explosion killed the city’s inhabitants, with the site lost for around 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years after that.
- The thermal energy released from Vesuvius was said to be a hundred thousand times that of the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
- The remains beneath the city have been preserved for more than a millennium due to the lack of air and moisture in the ground.
- During excavations, plaster was injected into the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies, allowing scientists to recreate their exact poses at the time of their deaths.
- Mount Vesuvius is arguably the most dangerous volcano on earth.
- It had been inactive for almost a century before roaring back into life and destroying Pompeii.
- Since then, it has exploded around three dozen more times – most recently in 1944 – and stands in close proximity to three million people.
- Although its current status is dormant, Vesuvius is an “extremely active” and unpredictable volcano, according to experts.
- To this day, scientists are finding cultural, architectural and human remains on the banks of Mount Vesuvius.
- Excavations at thermal baths in Pompeii’s ruins in February revealed the skeleton of a crouching child who perished in the 79 AD eruption.
Image credit: Getty
