Pompeii: The New Dig

NARRATOR: Now Professor Steven Tuck of Miami University is attempting to trace survivors in a pioneering new research project.

STEVEN (VO): Scholars have long thought there must have been people that made it out.

It's just that nobody ever went looking for them before.

NARRATOR: For the last decade, Steven has combed online databases of Roman inscriptions looking for clues.

Now, he's come to Pompeii to try to prove his theory.

NARRATOR: His first stop is a newly discovered tomb on the edge of town.

This Latin inscription holds vital evidence that Steven believes changes the thinking on how many people really lived in Pompeii.

So, this was found about four years ago.

You can still see, attached to the tomb, the remains of the pumice and the eruption material.

NARRATOR: While the owner's name is lost, the inscription describes his life in detail.

The dinners he held, the giveaways of bread, the gladiatorial games, the animal hunts he sponsored.

It's his entire life defined by his acts for the community.

NARRATOR: Most intriguingly, the inscription reveals a lavish dinner he gave for all the male citizens of Pompeii.

So we've got 456 dining couches with 15 men on each one.

NARRATOR: Knowing the benefactor hosted nearly 7,000 male guests, Steven believes he can work out Pompeii's true population.

STEVEN: Every one of these guys has families and wives and kids and enslaved people.

Which means that there can't only be 10,000 people in the community.

We think that this indicates probably a population of about 30,000.

This inscription tripled what we think the populace of Pompeii was.

NARRATOR: If 30,000 lived in the city, it means over 90% of Pompeiians are still missing.

STEVEN: People could have perished outside the city on the roads or on the coast, but with this vast, much larger number, there may have been thousands and thousands of people that made it out from the city.

There is a lot more people missing than we were aware of.