What happened

Plaster casts of calcified Pompeii residents have long been used by archaeologists to tell stories of the ancient Romans’ last, desperate moments before they were buried and preserved in pyroclastic ash from Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. But new DNA evidence shows that: Most of these stories are falseResearchers reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

who said what

A team of U.S. and European researchers performed genomic tests on 14 cast-embedded skeletal remains that had undergone restoration, including two individuals embracing and the four-member “Family in the House of the Golden Bracelet.” The presumed nuclear family turned out to be four unrelated men, including a mother wearing her distinctive bracelet and a child in her arms, the researchers found. Long believed to be sisters or mother and daughter, at least one of the intertwined “Two Maidens” was male, and the pair were not related. Many of the calcified Pompeians appear to have migrated from the Levant or North Africa, either by choice or by force.