The remains of around 1,500 people have been found from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Amongst the dead, there have been extremely poignant and touching images of families huddling together, and two men embracing as they died.
But now one image of a man preserved at Pompeii has gone viral over the weekend for a slightly lower-brow reason. People have been speculating that he was preserved in one final act of self-love, because, well, it really does look like that might be the case.
We'll probably never know what the man was really doing, but it's perfectly possible the man was killed whilst masturbating, or that his body just fell like this naturally.
Theories on how Pompeii victims died suggest that many were killed instantly in a blast of hot gas, which they wouldn't have seen coming. A study in 2001 looked at 80 skeletons taken from ash that had solidified and found signs that the victims close to the eruption would have been killed before they felt any pain.
"[There were no signs of a] voluntary self-protective reaction or agony contortions, indicating that their vital organs must have stopped within a shorter time than the conscious reaction time. The cloud was a mixture of hot gas and ash," said Dr Alberto Incoronato of the University of Naples Federico II, as reported by the Telegraph. "It caused little damage in the town itself but killed these people instantly."
Other victims were killed by falling debris in collapsed buildings, or possibly by suffocating in the ash. However, the lack of debris found around the "masturbating man" and the fact that he isn't covering his face seems to suggest that he was one of the so-called lucky ones who died instantly, without ever seeing it coming.