The truth behind embracing figures found in ancient Pompeii

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it wiped multiple Roman towns off the map — but it also froze them in time.

Ash raining down from the volcano blanketed Pompeii and surrounding cities, preserving frescoes, buildings and citizens where they fell.

Over time, Pompeii was forgotten, and it wasn’t until centuries later that excavations unearthed evidence of the tragic event.

In the 1800s, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a method to make plaster casts of some of the victims. He poured liquid chalk inside the outlines left behind by the bodies, preserving the shapes of 104 people.

Now, new research at the historic site is helping to tell stories about individuals who perished in the natural disaster — and in some cases, rewriting their misunderstood history.

Once upon a planet

Ancient DNA sequenced from bone fragments preserved within the plaster casts at the Pompeii site has upended some long-held assumptions about bodies found together.

A gold bracelet-wearing adult with a child astride the hip was thought to be a mother holding her child. But the genetic analysis showed it was an unrelated pair in their final moments.

Meanwhile, two embracing bodies thought to be sisters or a mother and daughter were revealed to be two young adults, and one of them is a male.

The findings also point to Pompeii as a cosmopolitan city during the Roman Empire, with its population having a surprisingly diverse heritage.

Back to the future

The world’s oldest writing system, cuneiform, may have its roots in unusual symbols that originated about 6,000 years ago.

Before wedge-shaped cuneiform characters appeared on clay tablets around 3400 BC, there was proto-cuneiform, or an archaic script that relied on abstract pictographs, hundreds of which remain undeciphered today.

Now, researchers have uncovered similarities between the proto-cuneiform symbols and engravings on cylinder seals that were rolled across clay to leave behind motifs for accounting purposes.

The correlating images relate to the trade and transport of fringed textiles and vessels being carried in nets, and the connection between the seals and symbols could help scientists crack the enigmatic proto-cuneiform code.

Fantastic creatures

An emperor penguin popped up out of the water and waddled up to surfers on Ocean Beach near the coastal town Denmark in the state of Western Australia, thousands of miles from its home in Antarctica. It’s the first time an emperor penguin has been observed so far north of the South Pole.

“He tried to do like a slide on his belly, thinking it was snow, I guess,” Aaron Fowler, a surfer who witnessed the penguin’s arrival, told public broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Local wildlife experts are rehabbing the malnourished seabird for the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, scientists are trying to determine what led the intrepid penguin on such an epic journey, which may have involved an adventurous food trek.

We are family

Researchers at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History recently peered beneath the thick linen wrappings of 26 mummified human and animal remains using a mobile CT scanner.

The videos of the 3D scans show the walls of the coffins and cloth bindings melt away, revealing the bones and artifacts beneath.

The nondestructive technology yielded insights about the diets, lifestyles and wishes for the afterlife of a noblewoman named Lady Chenet-aa and Harwa, a granary’s doorkeeper.

Lady Chenet-aa’s burial has long perplexed researchers. But the scans showed exactly how embalmers laid her to rest in a seamless coffin.

Other worlds

For years, astronomers have searched the edge of our solar system for evidence of an unseen world called Planet Nine.

Some scientists believe the planet influences the orbits and behaviors of objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region where Pluto and other icy objects likely left over from the formation of our cosmic neighborhood orbit the sun from vast distances.

Astronomers have various theories about Planet Nine, while others don’t think it even exists. The mysterious world could be a “super-Earth” about five to seven times the mass of our planet with an orbital path that takes thousands of years to complete.

But a new telescope that will begin operating next year could settle the debate once and for all.

Curiosities

Grab a hot beverage and settle in with these stories:

— Paleontologists unearthed the 12 million-year-old fossil of a giant meat-eating “terror bird” in Colombia, and the find may represent a previously unknown species.

— A 400-year-old skeleton, found buried in Poland with a sickle across the neck and a padlock on the left big toe, helped researchers create a striking 3D facial reconstruction of a mysterious young “vampire” woman.

— NASA Crew-8 astronauts spoke publicly for the first time after hospitalizations upon their October 25 return to Earth, including an unexpected side effect of reacclimating to gravity.

Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland, Katie Hunt and Jackie Wattles. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com