The ruined Roman city of Pompeii continues to yield secrets, this time in a book by a Sydney University academic in the first systematic study of human bone remains.

Resurrecting Pompeii by Dr Estelle Lazer, archaeologist at Sydney University, was launched earlier this month.

The book discusses the information gained from looking at the skeletal remains of victims of the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Although Pompeii has been continuously studied since 1748, early scholars were seduced by the more glamorous artefacts and wall paintings yielded by the site. The less attractive evidence, the bones, was largely ignored.

Until Dr Lazer’s work, there had not been a systematic study into victim profiling information that could be gathered from studying bones, including sex, age, general health and height and population affinities.

Dr Lazer found that, contrary to previous thinking, Pompeii’s victims were not mainly the infirm, women, children and the aged. “The bones look like a normally distributed population sample,” Dr Lazer said.

A close study of bone remains also indicate the average lifespan was much longer than previously thought. Dr Lazer also discovered the incidence of age-related diseases were at levels similar to today’s world.

In October, Dr Lazer will begin a study to identify sustainable design practices and techniques from Ancient Roman architecture that can be applied to modern design.

http://sydney-central.whereilive.com.au/news/story/sydney-academic-uearths-the-secret-of-pompeiis-bones/