Rats and mice fleeing Vesuvius eruption discovered entombed in vases in Pompeii

Archaeologists excavating servants’ quarters in the remains of a sprawling villa in Pompeii have found that Roman slaves were not the only occupants of the cramped space – rats and mice were living beneath their beds. Scientists have unearthed the entombed remains of two wood mice, an adult and a baby, inside an amphora that lay beneath one of the beds that were squeezed into the tiny room in the Civita Giuliana villa, which lay about 2,000ft north of the walls of the ancient city. In a crudely-made clay jug underneath another bed, they found the remains of a black rat, Rattus rattus – the species blamed for spreading the plague. The rat seems to have hopped into the jug to feed on a “semi-liquid substance”, the exact nature of which remains unclear, archaeologists said. The three rodents died, along with thousands of ancient Romans, when Pompeii was hit by a pyroclastic flow of hot ash and volcanic debris caused by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. The animals are among a plethora of intriguing new discoveries that archaeologists have made in two remarkably well-preserved slaves’ rooms, which were unearthed in November 2021. #pompeii #rats #mice #vases #excavation Subscribe to The Telegraph with our special offer: just £1 for 3 months. Start your free trial now: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/digitalsub/3for1/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_pvid_conversion-subscription_editorial-iniative_03-22_EGW-13_organic_youtube Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.