Photo: Skeletal victim of Vesuvius eruption

Victim of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum, Italy, 1994

Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta

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)

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