(ANSA) - Pompeii, April 6 - A cast of two embracing figures taken at Pompeii is that of two male lovers, Superintendent Massimo Osanna said after new findings Thursday. "Pompeii never ceases to amaze," he said. "We always imagined that it was an embrace between women. But a CAT scan and DNA have revealed that they are men," he said.

Later downplaying the discovery, Osanna said "the fact that they were lovers is an hypothesis that cannot be dismissed".

But he said that tests on the bones and teeth of the pair - hitherto known as The Two Maidens - showed that they were in fact male.

The casts of shapes in the volcanic ash that buried the ancient Roman city in 49 AD were made by archaeologist Vittorio Spinazzola at the start of the 20th century. This cast was made at the House of the Cryptoporticus.

