He held on to the bitter end (Picture: Instagram/ pompeii_parco_archeologico)

What would you do if everything around you was about to burn and be buried in ash for thousands of years?

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One of the bodies preserved in Pompeii seems to suggest one answer – a crafty one off the wrist as all around you burns.

The image of the body cast in Pompeii’s Garden of Fugitives has gone viral this week – with many commenters suggesting that he may have been using his last moments on Earth to have a last bit of self-pleasure.

you mean ive lived on this earth for 26 years and youre just NOW telling me they found a guy jacking it at pompeii — [Scooby Doo voice] (@beesmygod) July 3, 2017

A final act of self-gratification, or unflinching resistance to nature's wrath? MT @PersianRose1 Pompeii, 79 CE pic.twitter.com/kJw1qcFmKY — Alt-Rupert (@TheMurdochTimes) July 3, 2017

this post dedicated to the memory of the pompeii guy who was immortalized in ash cranking his hog pic.twitter.com/rR9AkDA3xY — Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) July 3, 2017

Masturbating man, Pompeii, 79 CE He died doing what he loves the most. RIP pic.twitter.com/JgiQMmj7ro — I hate memes (@simply_ebin) July 4, 2017

Volcanologist Pier Paolo Petrone said, ‘There is no way to demonstrate any ‘masturbating man’.


‘The individual in the photo is an adult man, killed by the hot pyroclastic surge – hot gas and ash cloud which killed most of the population living around Mount Vesuvius – with both arms and legs flexed due to the heat.’



Sadly for people giggling on the internet, he may not actually have died ‘doing what he loved’, Petrone said.

‘Most of the human victims found in Pompeii often show ‘strange’ position of arms and legs, due to the contraction of limbs as a consequence of the heat effect on their bodies after death occurred.’