Dr. Jessica Venner

We've got a lot of people coming out of the gates, flowing out of the gates and found on the streets outside.

We've even got a person, a man in a tree.

Wow.

Yeah.

So he was hiding and he thought, I can get above it.

So clearly they're seeing it coming and it goes so fast.

So he's trying to get above it.

We've got people on top of the pumice layers that other people are in, dead.

We've got horses lying on their sides that have suffocated.

But then we've also got the people that were hit by the pyroclastic flow.

And because of the nature of the heat and the suddenness of it, they do this thing called the boxer pose where all of their muscles contract.

And they end up putting their hands usually above their face as if they're about to box.

And that's why they're found in these contorted positions.

Even dogs and pigs have been found in these funny contorted positions.

And so they are able to preserve those with the plaster of Paris method, where their bodies leave a cavity when they decay.

Skeleton's still in there, mind you.

And then you fill it with plaster of Paris.

You can take the material around it, which is cemented, by the way.

around them.

Then you have this form and you can see the clothes that they're wearing, the faces, the jewelry.