Who was Pliny the Elder?
- Pliny the Elder was a Roman polymath, writer and military leader who launched a naval rescue operation to save the people of Pompeii from the deadly eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD
- He would have had about a dozen quadriremes, warships with four banks of rowers, at his disposal.
- The Roman fleet made the 30-kilometer journey across the Gulf of Naples, launching lifeboats to collect refugees who had made their way to the beaches.
- According to Pliny the Younger, his uncle also disembarked and went looking for his friends in Stabiae. But as he was leading a group of survivors to safety, he was overtaken by a cloud of poisonous gas, and died on the beach.
- In the first years of the 20th century, an engineer called Gennaro Matrone uncovered some 70 skeletons near the coast at Stabiae. One of the bodies carried a golden triple necklace chain, golden bracelets and a short sword decorated with ivory and seashells. Matrone theorized that this was the skeleton of Pliny the Elder
- Researchers plan to carry out two tests: a comparison between the skull's morphology with known busts and images of Pliny, and, more importantly, an examination of the isotope signatures in his teeth.
- By matching the isotopes in the tooth enamel, with those in soil samples, scientists can determine where a person grew up.