Pompeii - a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was partially destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
The victims of Pompeii's volcano's victims. When the ash poured down over the city, people were killed instantly, in the exact poses they struck when they noticed their impending doom. As their bodies decomposed, they left perfectly-formed hollows in the ash. Historians can inject these hollows with plaster, recreating the positions of the bodies, and sometimes their terrified facial expressions.