Free Republic

In the video, Pompeii Archaeological Park Director Massimo Osanna narrates a tour of two Pompeiian homes that were entombed in ash alongside the rest of the city when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. The director's Italian remarks are translated into English in a statement and can also be read using YouTube's auto-translate feature, according to HeritageDaily. Osanna takes viewers inside two domus dwellings, or private residences, on either side of Vicolo dei Balconi, or Alley of the Balconies. In the first home, dubbed the House With the Garden, researchers were able to make casts of the roots of plants...

A team of archaeologists at Pompeii has uncovered an alleyway of grand houses, with balconies left mostly intact and still in their original hues... The discovery is unusual not just for the colour preservation, which will allow visitors to the site to see the houses almost exactly as the city's original residents did, but also because it is so unusual in Pompeii for upper storeys to have been preserved. This is because the city was buried from above, unlike nearby Herculaneum for example which was buried by volcanic ash from the ground up. Located further from the volcano than Herculaneum,...