Pompeii victims were wearing woolen cloaks in August when they died — but experts are split on what that means

Pompeii may have been unseasonably cold when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Roman city in A.D. 79, new research proposes.

A new analysis of 14 of the iconic plaster casts made of the victims at Pompeii has revealed that at least four were wearing woolen clothing when they were buried, even though late August — when the eruption is thought to have happened — is typically hot in this region. It's also possible that people were wearing woolen clothes for protection against the eruption, the researchers noted.

The research, which has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented in late November at an archaeological conference near Pompeii in Italy.

It plays into an old idea that Vesuvius might have erupted in a later and colder month than August. But modern scholarship has determined from contemporaneous documents that the volcano blew on Aug. 24, 79, and some experts suggest the traces of woolen clothes from Pompeii are not signs of cold.

"They were wearing wool because that's what people wore at that time," said Pedar Foss, a historian and archaeologist at DePauw University in Indiana who was not involved with the research. Sheep's wool was tough, warm even when wet, and relatively cheap; linen from flax was available but delicate; and only the elites wore silk and cotton in ancient times. "About 90% of all clothing anywhere was wool," Foss told Live Science.

The research was led by Llorenç Alapont, an archaeologist at the University of Valencia. According to a translated statement from the university, the researchers studied the weaves of fabric imprinted on the plaster casts of the Vesuvius victims at Pompeii. "From our study … we can know how people dressed on this specific day in history," Alapont said in the statement.

Disputed date

A total of 104 casts have been made at Pompeii since the 19th century by using plaster to fill the voids where victims had been buried by ash and debris from the erupting volcano. (Miami University history professor Steven Tuck thinks that around 2,000 people were killed at Pompeii but that many more escaped.) Casts are no longer made, because it's now thought they could destroy any remains.

The imprints of the weaves of garments from the victims at Pompeii show most were wearing a two-piece outfit of a woolen tunic and cloak, Alapont said. But "we do not know if this particular clothing was to protect themselves from the gases or the ambient heat caused by the volcanic eruption," he said. In other words, he wondered whether the people killed at Pompeii were wearing woolen clothes for protection, perhaps from gases, heat or falling ash, during the roughly 18-hour-long eruption.

Foss explained that the Roman author Pliny the Younger was a teenager when he witnessed the eruption and described it about 30 years later in letters to the Roman historian Tacitus. Pliny firmly dated the eruption to "Nonum Kalendas Septembres" — the ninth day before the Kalends (first) of September, which is Aug. 24 of A.D. 79 in the modern Gregorian calendar.

But Pliny the Younger's written account was badly copied during the Middle Ages, and the month of the eruption was disputed until recent scholarship confirmed that Pliny — who was by that time an accomplished Roman magistrate — had recorded the August date, Foss said.

Proponents of a later month cite the evidence of autumnal fruits at Pompeii, an inscription scrawled in charcoal on a wall there, and what may be a slightly later coin found in the ruins. However, none of it is conclusive.

Tulane University historian and archaeologist Allison Emmerson explained the dispute to Live Science in an email. "The manuscript tradition is quite secure — the only date provided by the text is August 24," she said. "Whether that reflects the date of the actual event, however, is still subject to controversy."

Warmth or protection

The latest study does not make a pronouncement about the date of the Vesuvius eruption. It says only that the clothing worn by the Pompeii victims might be a sign that the day of the eruption was unseasonably cold for August — but, then again, it might not have been, or the wool might have been for protection.

The researchers also determined that people who died both inside and outside the houses at Pompeii were wearing the same types of clothes, according to the statement.

Foss said the research by Alapont and his team was important because it established what people at Pompeii were wearing when they were killed, but it did not add to any issue about the weather. "I just don't think it makes an argument either way," he concluded.

Pompeii quiz: How much do you know about the Roman town destroyed by Mount Vesuvius?