Dr Estelle Lazer holds a 3D print of a Pompeian cast. Image: Gianni Quaranta

Ongoing analysis of 86 restored casts in Pompeii is disproving enduring myths about the lives – and deaths – of the victims of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

A team led by Dr Estelle Lazer of the University of Sydney has used portable digital x-ray machines to yield readable images of bones embedded in thick plaster, and digital CT scanners, to provide the most complete picture yet of delicate skeletal remains.

As part of the Great Pompeii Project funded by the European Union and Italian government, Dr Lazer and colleagues secured the loan of advanced CT scanners through a partnership with Philips. The discoveries enabled by this technology challenge longstanding claims about the Pompeians.

For one, they did not have ‘perfect teeth’, as has been widely reported in the past year.

“We have found evidence of tooth decay, gum disease with associated bone loss and the build-up of calcified plaque,” says Dr Lazer.

The researchers also found evidence of abscesses and signs that Pompeians’ teeth were worn from eating bread made from stone ground flour — stone fragments would fall into the flour.