Archaeologists Discover 2,000-Year-Old 'Bed Barricade' That a Family May Have Used to Escape Vesuvius’ Eruption
The Vesuvius eruption in the first century wreaked havoc on multiple Roman towns. Archaeologists over the years have unearthed multiple evidence of the pain individuals felt as lava engulfed them. Recently, in a house in Pompeii, experts have found proof of the desperate means people applied in their last moments to evade Vesuvius, stated Live Science. Details regarding the examination conducted at the site were published in the online e-journal Scavi di Pompei.
Archaeologists excavated the house and unearthed the remains of four people. The four individuals included a child and appeared to be a family. Along with the human remains, experts also spotted a bed, which was placed very close to the room's door. This made experts speculate that the family intentionally moved the bed to barricade the door. The blocking was possibly an attempt to shield themselves from dust, gas, and hot ash.
The house was discovered in 2019 and named Elle e Frisso, stated The Sun. The abode was accidentally spotted during the excavation of the House of Leda and the Swan, which was very close to Elle e Frisso. During the investigation, the researchers found several paintings in the house as well as a banquet. One of the paintings found in the house depicted mythological twins Phrixus and Helle escaping from their stepmother on a Ram, right before Helle fell to her death in the waters. This painting inspired the house's name.
Other things found at the site include a bronze amulet that was possibly worn by a child, a water basin, bronze scales, and bronze cooking pans. Archaeologists also noted a hole in the roof, which could have been used to collect rainwater. Researchers think that eventually, it was through this hole that the deadly ash entered the house. "This is because the lapilli, the volcanic stones that risked invading the space, entered through the opening in the roof of the atrium," Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archeological Park of Pompeii, said.
Based on several features of the site, experts speculated that the home belonged to a middle or upper-class Roman family. The way the house was arranged at the time of the disaster suggested to the team that the site was possibly undergoing a renovation at the time of the eruption.
Archaeologists created the cast of a bed that they believe was used by the family to save themselves, according to Live Science. As expected, this method didn't work, and possibly all the inhabitants of the house died. "They didn't make it. In the end, the pyroclastic flow arrived, a violent flow of very hot ash that filled here, as elsewhere, every room; the seismic shocks had already caused many buildings to collapse," Zuchtriegel added.
The family is the latest addition to hundreds of victims who have been dug up by archaeologists across centuries. In 2024, a team of researchers found remains of two men from Pompeii’s Casa dei Pittori al Lavoro who survived the first phase of the eruption, but were ultimately killed by the following earthquakes, according to Popular Mechanics. "New insight into the destruction of Pompeii gets us very close to the experience of the people who lived here 2,000 years ago," Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, said, "The choices they made as well as the dynamics of the events, which remain a focus of our research, decided over life and death in the last hours of the city’s existence."