Pompeii: The New Dig

Narrator: The Roman city of Pompeii thrived in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, a bustling cosmopolitan seaside town on the Bay of Naples, a favorite retreat of the Roman elite, a melting pot of traders from across the empire.

But in two desperate days, it was lost.

[Rumbling, structures cracking] In A.D. 79, the volcano erupted, burying the city and its people under 19 feet of pumice and ash.

[Tool scraping] Narrator: Now the traces of those lost lives are emerging once more.

[Speaking Italian] Narrator: Once everyday objects, these treasures are bringing the past to life, as the biggest dig in Pompeii in a generation enters its final phase.

[Rumbling] [Engine starts, excavator beeps] Narrator: Two years ago, a team of Italian archeologists started excavating a huge city block in the biggest dig for over 70 years.

The new dig covers an area equivalent to 2 1/2 Olympic swimming pools, looking out on Via Nola.

Close to the city gate, Via Nola was once one of the wealthiest and busiest streets in town, crowded with horses, carts, and tradesmen; lined with shops, bars, and luxurious homes; and decorated with the most fashionable Roman interior design.

Woman: You never know what you're going to uncover when you start excavating here, and this dig has been amazing.

So this excavation started along the main road and revealed a series of commercial complexes.

So we have the bakery with a huge oven.

And then on the other side, we have a laundry.

But behind this entire complex is a separate residence, a huge house.

We can already see that it's of grand dimensions and sumptuous decoration.

Narrator: This was a house designed to impress.

[Blows] Narrator: All the evidence so far suggests the lavishly-decorated residence and the businesses behind appear to be owned by a wealthy man named Aulus Rustius Verus, who left behind his initials, ARV.

Man: We know that Aulus Rustius Verus ran for the highest office of the city council.

He was a landowner and rich, an important citizen of Pompeii.

Narrator: What more can the excavation reveal about Aulus and the lifestyle of the rich and famous of Pompeii?

[Camera shutter clicks] Archeologist Dr. Sophie Hay is closely following the excavation, recording each discovery as it happens.

Sophie Hay: So pretty much from day one, I've been onsite, taking photographs and documenting the excavation for Pompeii.

And so far, we have a little window on to what this house looks like.

[Camera shutter clicks] But there's lots of other little rooms that we have no idea about as yet.

Narrator: In one of the many rooms of Aulus' residence, close to his main dining hall, the team makes an unexpected discovery.

Hay: As they were digging, they came across an extraordinary find-- the skeleton of a woman in a sort of fetal position, lying but not quite on the floor, so presumably on some kind of furniture.

Narrator: Who was this woman, and what was she doing here?

[Thunder] As Vesuvius erupted, pumice and ash rained down on Pompeii for 18 hours.

Roofs and buildings began to collapse under the weight of the volcanic debris, and the death toll rose.

But it was the final deadliest phase of the eruption, the so-called "wall of death," that finished the city off-- the pyroclastic flow.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel: There were several of these so-called surges-- pyroclastic surges--very hot, expanding very fast, about 100 kilometers per hour.

And when it reaches Pompeii, it's about 200 to 300 degrees Celsius, so it kills every human being, every animal still in the city.

And that's basically the end of Pompeii.

Narrator: The woman found in the small room was lying over a thick layer of ash from the pyroclastic flow.

This means she must have survived until the last phase of the eruption.

What was found near the woman may explain the reason she was there.

Hay: On one side, at the level of the pelvis, they found minute traces of fabric, suggesting she was carrying some kind of purse or small bag.

And then on the other side, she also seemed to be carrying something.

They found fragments of a lock and traces of wood, so maybe a box.

So, really, who was this woman and what was the world she inhabited?

Narrator: Inside the wooden box and the small bag, the team discovered the woman was holding some very precious objects.

The finds are now brought to the onsite laboratory for restoration by Dr. Ludovica Alesse, the dig's head restorer.

Ludovica Alesse: In this small room without paintings, without mosaics on the ground, without anything, more or less, at the level of the pelvis, we found some bronze coins, probably conserved in a... in a fabric purse, and we found on the surface of some of these coins traces of this fabric.

But it's not the only things we found.

We found more.

There was something really special and really important.

We found these incredible golden coins.

And you can see they are totally golden.

They come out from the soil in this way, so they are clean and clear.

OK, here, I'm going to do a simple surface cleaning with alcohol because this coin is in perfect condition.

It's only dirt.

I don't always need to do a big intervention.

Sometimes it's enough to clean to preserve something.

And this was really important for me because it was the first time that I found some golden coins in an excavation.

And to bring it from the soil was, wow!

[Chuckles] Narrator: Gold, Romans believed, was the metal of the gods-- a symbol of power and nobility.

It's common for one or two gold coins to be found.

A group of six, however, is very rare.

But coins were not the only things found with this woman.

Alesse: And also with these coins, we found other important golden things.

Incredible.

This, golden and pearl earrings.

You can see pearls are quite new, so it's not common to find golden and pearl earrings in every dig, and it's not common to find earrings conserved in this way.

You cannot imagine that they were into the soil from 2,000 years.

Narrator: Earrings fashioned from precious Mediterranean sea pearls were very in vogue among Roman women at the time.

But the sea pearls weren't just jewelry, they were markers of social status.

Hay: It's very interesting because when we see portraits of women from Pompeii, they're often wearing earrings.

And in one specific case, there's a baker's wife, and she's wearing pearl earrings on gold clasps.

They're actually even described by Pliny the historian, who says that these double sets of pearls bang together when you walk, and they make a certain noise.

So they are an indicator of, "I'm coming through.

I'm important, I have money."

So we have to think that whoever was wearing them or owned them has money.

Narrator: Could the woman have been the wife of the owner of the luxurious house, the ambitious politician Aulus?

If this was the case, she would have been like a first lady in town.

Their house would have been one of the most important properties around.

As one team continues emptying the small room, another works on the large black walled area in the center of the house.

The excavation reveals a dining hall, where Aulus would have received his most esteemed guests.

The team has now reached the floor, led by Dr. Gennaro Iovino and Dr. Luca Salvatori.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: The team is working on one section of the floor at the edge of the hall.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: This intricate mosaic forms a boundary between the dining hall and a private exclusive area of the home.

It was a threshold that only a few privileged guests could cross.

[Speaking Italian] [Iovino Speaking Italian] Narrator: Back in the small room, a few feet from where the woman's skeleton was found, the team has discovered an array of household objects neatly stacked on top of a marble slab.

Alesse: When we have something so delicate, it is kind of special, kind of exciting.

Yeah.

And it is so close to the discovery of the lady, so you can understand the emotion now.

[Alesse speaking Italian] Alesse, voice-over: We found a bronze lamp with a moon-shaped handle, and the moon was a female symbol.

Kind of, uh, yeah, a symbol of protection for ladies.

[Speaking Italian] Alesse, voice-over: For sure, this was common pottery for a daily use.

And also, we have two glass bottles without any cracks, completely intact.

And also these two bowls, like the bowls that you use for your breakfast that we use nowadays.

So maybe she eat from these dishes or maybe she drink from that bottle.

So I think it can be nice to make a connection between the victim and this... and this particular object.

Common but...special.

Narrator: The marble top found underneath the ceramics and bottles is now lifted away, revealing something unexpected.

[Alesse laughs] [Conversation in Italian] Narrator: The team thinks a wooden table would have supported the marble slab.

But wood decomposes over time, and so the table trapped under the volcanic ash brought it down, leaving a series of cavities.

In a painstaking process, the team are going to try to recreate the table by filling the voids with plaster.

This is the same way the famous casts of Pompeii's victims were created.

Liquid plaster is poured into the cavities in the ash.

Zuchtriegel: This is always the most exciting moment because you pour in the plaster.

You don't know what it is.

You want a very liquid, delicate plaster to make it go into all the small spaces and to reproduce all the little details, even maybe the structure of wood and textiles and so forth.

[Speaking Italian] Zuchtriegel: It's a very, very delicate operation.

But we are trying new things all the time inside Pompeii, so let's see how this works out.

Narrator: The plaster below ground needs time to set, and the team won't know if the cast-making is successful until the whole room has been excavated.

In the meantime, the work moves quickly onsite, and more stylish frescoes come to light.

It's clear that Aulus spared no expense when it came to the interior design of his private house.

And as the excavation of the small room continues, the team finds further evidence of furniture next to and beneath the skeleton.

[Iovino speaking Italian] [Alesse speaking Italian] Narrator: Ludovica and the restoration team prepare to make more plaster casts to reveal the full picture of the room where the woman died.

Not far from the small room, there's another tantalizing discovery... a tiled roof in a remarkable state of preservation.

The shape of the roof suggests it could have hung over a courtyard supported by columns.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: The wealthiest houses in Pompeii often had indoor courtyards, private green spaces away from the chaos and bustle of the public places.

The challenge now for the team is to free the area from the pumice whilst ensuring the whole structure doesn't collapse.

Zuchtriegel: The columns are there still.

There's also some walls, but they are held basically by the material of the eruption, the pumice stones and the ash soil.

And so as you excavate, you also take away the main element that still holds this column or wall piece in place.

And so you have immediately to make sure that it doesn't collapse due to excavation, which would be a terrible result of archeological research.

Narrator: Once the roof tiles have been removed, a steel framework is mounted to cradle the roof frame and beams whilst the experts carry on excavating the courtyard.

[Heavy machine clanking] Back in the small room, the skeleton of the woman is removed in the hope that further analysis will reveal more about her and her last moments.

The plaster casts of the furniture are now ready to be revealed, helping recreate the room at the moment of destruction.

Hay: Quite incredible to be back in this room now all the casts have been made.

There's a completely different sensation of the room from when I first saw it way up at the top, and it's full of furniture.

So here we have a sort of medium-sized chest made of wood.

And, really interestingly, it's got a huge sort of iron lock on it, which suggests whatever was inside was important enough to lock away.

I mean, it would be lovely to think that the jewelry found on the lady was actually kept in here and she'd come in here to collect it.

I mean, we have no way of knowing, but I think that lock is really significant in the sense that they're trying to protect something and keep something safe.

And then alongside it, we have this candelabra, essentially a lampstand.

It's a beautiful example with these sort of little ivy leaf decoration as feet.

Otherwise, quite plain, a quite plain shaft, but then, yeah, this little sort of top here which would have had the lamp sitting on it.

We see them depicted in the big black dining room.

They are meant to be in sort of grand rooms.

So it is a little strange to find it here.

But it is quite emotive that it's fallen down, this kind of catastrophe embodied in this little lampstand.

And then we have a simple wooden-framed table that we've seen, and it had a beautiful piece of marble sitting on the top of it, which had a whole array of objects still standing upright on its top.

But what were they all doing in this room?

We're not sure.

But also we have a bed, and this bed is actually fascinating.

It's quite a simple-looking bed, but on top of this bed and slightly falling off it was found the lady.

Was she lying on the bed?

Did she fall onto the bed?

We're not sure.

But considering what she had on her person-- the gold coins, the earrings, these are all quite wealthy objects.

So what would a woman, if they belonged to her, what would she be doing in this room?

She wouldn't be working in this room.

She wouldn't be living in this room, but maybe she came to retrieve things and then wanted to flee.

But this would not-- If she was that wealthy, this would not be the room she would be living in all the time.

Narrator: The newly revealed furniture gives a clearer picture of the room in which the woman died.

In the restoration lab, they're hoping the coins may shed light on her status in life.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: Titus became the Roman emperor in A.D. 79, and so is portrayed on the coins, a reminder of when time stopped in this town.

On the back of another coin, there's an image of the she-wolf nursing her two cubs, Romulus and Remus.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: The golden coins the woman was holding onto so tightly were the equivalent of thousands of dollars today.

[Sound of rumbling, object thuds] She could have been the wealthy owner of the house with some of her riches or a more blue-collar person with her lifetime savings.

The woman's bones are now taken to the lab to see what more they might reveal about her story.

Zuchtriegel: What we can see is that from the skeleton, it doesn't seem a person who had to do a lot of hard work.

She was about 1 meter and 60 centimeters.

And judging from the skeleton and the teeth, this woman was about 40 to 45 years old when she died.

The teeth as well, you can also see a certain kind of consumption, but generally, they are in very good shape, I would say.

Narrator: The evidence confirms the woman was in good health, which, in Roman times, meant you were likely to be wealthy, leaving open the possibility that she could have been Aulus' wife.

[Shovel thudding] Narrator: Back at the dig, as the team works to clear the courtyard, they've come across a line of unusual frescoes.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: These frescoes of athletes suggests this courtyard might have been an open-air private gym.

[Alessandro Russo speaking Italian] Narrator: Physical exercise and training were important disciplines for the Pompeiians, like all ancient Romans.

The most celebrated athletes in town were the gladiators, who performed regularly in the amphitheater.

[Sound of crowd cheering, clapping, and stomping] Narrator: They trained in public gyms known as palaestra.

[Loud cheering] [Russo speaking Italian] Narrator: Mosaics in the Pompeiian gyms would often depict physical exercise, and these gyms were frequently attached to thermal baths.

In an area not far from the courtyard gym, the team think they may have found one, a rarity in Pompeii.

[Hay chuckles] Oh, my word.

[Speaking Italian] This is-- this is fantastic.

I mean, this is state-of-the-art spaghetti of pipes and tank.

Oh, my word.

Wow.

This is fabulous.

Truly.

Wow.

[Iovino speaking Italian] Yeah, I'm lost for words.

I've never seen anything like this in Pompeii itself.

Narrator: This room would have been the pulsing engine of a private bath complex.

Hmm.

So you've got one lead pipe coming in from the street.

OK.

This then feeds into... [Speaking Italian] OK. And then you've got a tank with cold water in that then feeds through various pipes into the boiler itself.

And this complicated system of pipes is, is fascinating because it's so controlled.

You can, you know, regulate the temperature of the water going into the baths just through-- again, through a series of these beautiful valves, which, I mean, today look like they could still be used.

[Chuckles] It's incredible, the sort of complex mechanics of it all.

I feel, you know, I can just turn the tap on and it might actually work.

[Iovino speaking Italian] Narrator: A private bath would have required a lot of water.

In Pompeii, fresh water coming via aqueducts from nearby hills was collected in a big cistern at the top of the town.

If you were rich enough, you could tap into this system, but only a few people could afford to do so.

Hay: There's a very small percentage of people in Pompeii with private baths, so we're looking at a tiny, tiny part at the top echelon of society that can afford to do this.

And now you can, you know, visually see why.

This is a complicated, expensive system.

You have to pay for the water.

You have to pay for the engineering, all of this.

And then, of course, you need the slaves to work it for you.

It's an enterprise.

It's not a simple turn the tap on and go.

Narrator: This boiler room is a stunning example of ancient Roman engineering at the center of a truly modern lifestyle.

As the dig progresses, the red columns around the private gym are gradually revealed.

Now the team's focus turns to the center of the courtyard.

[Conversation in Italian] OK. Narrator: Could the open-air gym have had a jacuzzi at its center?

The team needs to remove the pumice from the area before they'll know for certain.

Work is in full swing.

And just next to the gym, there is further evidence of a private spa-- a changing room complete with a bench; a warm room, or tepidarium, for a lukewarm sauna; and a hot room, or caldarium, for a hot steam.

The hot room was an important feature of the bathing ritual, part of a sequence of rooms from warm to hot to cold that was strictly followed.

[Water splashing] This was a cleansing routine for the Romans and part of their social life.

It was about making contacts and being seen.

And it was never rushed.

[Russo speaking Italian] [Shovel clanking] Narrator: As the excavation of Aulus' private spa progresses, the team working in the gym is getting closer to solving the question of the jacuzzi.

[Iovino speaking Italian] Narrator: Now they've uncovered the cold plunge pool, the team is close to revealing the whole open-air gym.

[Speaking Italian] OK.

Perfect.

[Conversation in Italian] [Iovino speaking Italian] Narrator: Aulus' domestic empire with a private spa complete with gym is now almost fully exposed.

But back in the small room, where the woman with the pearl earrings and the furniture were found, the story takes one final turn.

Down on the floor level, they've uncovered a second skeleton.

Dr. Luca Salvatori is working on extracting the delicate bones.

[Salvatori speaking Italian] Narrator: The severe bone fractures suggest this person died under the collapsing walls of the building while the woman was lying on the bed just a couple of feet away.

[Salvatori speaking Italian] Narrator: Luca and the director are now trying to establish the exact chain of events.

[Conversation in Italian] Narrator: This latest discovery has added a twist to the mystery of what happened here.

Not one but two skeletons in the small room with the furniture.

[Salvatori speaking Italian] Narrator: As the tragedy in the small room emerges, elsewhere the full extent of Aulus' empire is becoming clearer, from the bakery and the businesses to his luxury dining hall and his courtyard gym.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

This is amazing.

It's transformed.

This is the missing piece of your thermal experience.

This is fantastic, and not what anyone was expecting.

That's what's so amazing, is that no one thought that this would end up being quite so sort of magical and prestigious.

It's fantastic.

[Speaking Italian] Hay: And can they swim in here?

[Continues in Italian] Hay: But you've also got the frescoes, and they have little sporting scenes.

So this could be somewhere where people were exercising before plunging into the cold pool.

[Iovino speaking Italian] Hay: Wow.

I mean, it's amazing because, I mean, this is so rare in Pompeii.

The owner of the house-- if it's Aulus or not, we don't know, but whoever owned this house was really making a big statement about money, wealth, luxury, and power.

Narrator: The bones of the second victim are now transferred from the small room to the lab, where Pompeii's director hopes to find some answers.

Zuchtriegel: We understood that this is the male individual-- rather young, 15 to 20 years old.

But unlike the woman who doesn't seem to have done hard work during her life, this person here, in spite of the young age, we can already see some herniated discs, indicating the fact that he might have carried heavy weights during his life, and that it could possibly indicate that he was an enslaved worker, who, for living, had to do hard work.

I think if you have a single person, a victim of the eruption, what you see is the solitude and the loneliness in the last moment, someone who was completely left alone.

It's something very touching, but it's something terrible, actually.

Maybe these two people somehow helped each other and encouraged each other in these last moments, and maybe even risked their own life to save others because they really were fighting for their lives.

[Sound of people screaming] Hay: Let's say this is Aulus' wife and she is the matron of the house with her wealth, and if her male companion is her slave, we have to ask ourselves why they may have chosen this room to be in.

Or were they just hoping to grab some objects and then flee?

Or did they stay in this room, thinking it was going to save them, that they would be protected by this small room?

In the end, it doesn't matter who you are.

It reminds us that death came to anyone who was still in the city.

[Rumbling noises] Narrator: A tragedy destroyed an entire town, but it also preserved the traces of lives in a miraculous way.

Hay: It's quite something to reach this point after two years, watching this building slowly unfold, objects emerging from the pumice, and the sensation that we're the first to see all these things for the first time since A.D. 79.

And just, I guess, what I would take away from all of this is, is those contrasting lives.

So we start in the bakery, the hideous conditions for the enslaved people, but yet just next door, we have this sumptuous house with lots of beautiful decoration.

The owner of this house had dreams and aspirations.

He's in the lap of luxury.

And that contrast-- they're right cheek by jowl, and that's how the Pompeiians lived.

The hopes they had for the future, the bettering of their world, and yet they never got the chance.

[Rumbling] Life was snatched from them with the eruption.

[Thunder, people screaming] [Iovino Speaking Italian] This program is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video