Identity of casts of victims at Pompeii not all they seem, research suggests

Scientists studying DNA find one person in scene of cowering family was a man and not a ‘mother’

It is a tragic moment, frozen in time: a family of four shelters beneath a staircase as ash and pumice rains down on Pompeii. But now scientists studying DNA from the victims say this famous scene is not what it seems, with the “mother” of the group actually a man.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, the Roman town of Pompeii was destroyed, its remaining inhabitants buried beneath a thick blanket of ash and pumice. These victims were later immortalised by archaeologists who used plaster to fill the voids left by their bodies.