The hands of an archaeologist carefully brush away the earth caked on strange, unrecognizable objects. Slowly the shapes emerge as a foot, a skull and femur. The wide-open mouth of a skeleton stares up at the camera. This is Herculaneum in the Gulf of Naples at the foot of the world's most unpredictable and complex active volcano, Vesuvius. And these are the remains of over 300 skeletons found huddled in twelve vaults down on the beach, which have lain here since Vesuvius' most famous eruption in 79AD when the whole city was buried under 30 metres of ash and pumice.
In an otherwise deserted ghost town, what are these bodies doing here? This is what the eminent British archaeologist Andrew Wallace Hadrill and an interdisciplinary team of scientists set out to unravel. The latest techniques in computer graphics explain in colourful, easy-to-understand terms the complex process which led to this devastating and world-famous eruption.
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