Sign up for free

Newsletters

Once a month
get new photos
and expert tips.

Photography
Main Photo Galleries Wallpapers Photo of the Day Photographers Photo Tips Buy Prints

Victim of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum, Italy, 1994

Photo: Skeletal victim of Vesuvius eruption

A reddish-brown skeleton, belonging to a victim of the infamous Mount Vesuvius eruption, lies partially uncovered in the ancient city of Herculaneum. The lesser-known sister city of Pompeii, Herculaneum was quickly buried by a glowing avalanche—consisting of fast-moving gases, pumice, and rocks—on that fateful August day in A.D. 79.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Dead Do Tell Tales at Vesuvius," May 1984, National Geographic magazine)

Buy a print of this photo.

Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta