DNA rewrites the history of Pompeii: The woman with the bracelet was a man and unrelated to the child on her lap

An international investigation has applied the latest genetic analysis technologies to the bones of 14 Pompeii residents who perished under tons of ash during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The eruption buried the entire city, preserving it in time. In the mid-18th century, a soldier from Zaragoza, Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre, began excavating the city under orders from his king, Charles III. Alcubierre, an engineer, developed his own unique archaeological method: rather than working with open-air sites, he dug unstable underground galleries where statues, frescoes, and objects from Pompeii soon emerged. Initially, Alcubierre believed he had discovered Stabia, a nearby port town, rather than Pompeii.

The bodies buried in ash were nearly hollow. In the 19th century, Italian archaeologists began filling the voids with plaster. Once dried, the plaster casts were carefully removed, revealing astonishing figures of the deceased — some contorted in pain, others lying peacefully. Among them were particularly poignant scenes, such as a woman with a gold bracelet holding her son in her lap, or two sisters fused in an eerie embrace in their final moments.

In 2015, archaeological authorities at this legendary site near Naples decided to restore 86 casts of the deceased. Inside, they found bones mixed with plaster. A team of researchers from Italy, Germany, and the United States worked to recover genetic material and chemical compounds from the remains of 14 victims, successfully extracting data from five. The results, published on Thursday, revealed surprising findings.

One of the most iconic figures — a mother and child — was discovered in a luxurious villa that archaeologists named the House of the Golden Bracelet. When four bodies were unearthed there in 1974, it was assumed that they belonged to a family who had died while fleeing the eruption. However, DNA analysis now shows that all of the deceased were men. The supposed woman wearing the ornate 30-carat bracelet was actually a middle-aged man, and he was not related to the five-year-old boy on his lap.

The cast traditionally referred to as the “two sisters,” which depicts two embracing figures — one with her head near the pubis of the other — has long been thought to be of two women. However, recent DNA analysis reveals that the figures actually represent a man and another person, whose sex has not been determined. Earlier studies had suggested they were two men, possibly lovers. The new findings were published on Thursday in Current Biology.

Alissa Mittnik, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute (Germany) and lead author of the study, explains to EL PAÍS that although DNA studies were previously conducted on some of the eruption victims, this latest research represents the largest such study to date. “In most cases, moulds were not made of the victims and only their skeletons are preserved. We are analyzing many of them,” she says.

“Nowadays, researchers try to avoid biases when interpreting archaeological evidence and acknowledge uncertainties,” she explains. “Views that align more with contemporary perspectives or that are more sensational often attract more public interest and are more widely disseminated. But the findings of this study underscore the importance of remaining open to a wide range of alternative explanations that can be evaluated by integrating diverse scientific methods.”

David Caramelli, an anthropologist at the University of Florence, says: “This research shows how genetic analysis can significantly contribute to the stories constructed from archaeological data.” The co-author of the paper adds that these findings “challenge persistent conceptions, such as the association of jewelry with femininity, or the interpretation of physical proximity as evidence of family relationships.”

The study also provides insights into the origins of the inhabitants of Pompeii, most of whom hailed from the eastern Mediterranean. Iñigo Olalde, a geneticist from the University of the Basque Country who was not involved in the research, underscores the significance of these new findings. “We tend to think that in Imperial Rome the majority of people were from the Italian peninsula, but at that time, many people came from more eastern areas, such as Turkey, the Near East, or Greece, where the real demographic muscle of Rome was,” he explains.

The population profile of Pompeii’s inhabitants closely resembles that of people from Rome itself, as well as from the Balkans during the Roman Empire. This was highlighted in a study published in 2023, in which Olalde was the lead author.

Patxi Pérez-Ramallo, a Spanish archaeologist working at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, points out: “This study questions daring and sometimes speculative interpretations that are presented in guided tours or archaeological readings based solely on context.” According to the researcher, the work “allows us to advance in the knowledge of Roman society in the 1st century and also offers a basis for historians and specialized archaeologists to make more in-depth interpretations and compare their knowledge with the results provided by this study.”

Geneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox, director of the Barcelona Museum of Natural Sciences, believes that this study “shows how we project our gender stereotypes onto the past, when reality is perhaps more interesting.” He adds: “At least, I find the image of a man with a gold bracelet holding a child to whom he was not related far more intriguing. It offers a fresh perspective on what has long been assumed evidence from what is possibly the most iconic archaeological site in Europe.”

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