The masturbating man of Pompeii, 79 AD

The masturbating man of Pompeii, 79 AD

This picture, released in 2017, shows the remains of a man who was a resident of Pompeii. The remains are in a position that suggested the man died while masturbating. This theory created a whole world of weird explanations, ranging from the man using self-pleasure as a coping mechanism to the eruption or the fact that he decided to have one last orgasm before his untimely death. One internet user once summarised the picture as "absolute mad lad cracking a final one before facing eternity, absolute legend." The reality is, this man was not pleasuring himself at the time of his death. The extreme heat caused this man's body to contort in unnatural ways. He likely died due to the volcanic gas and his body then had an extreme reaction to the heat, causing him to be in the position seen above. The destruction of Pompeii occurred in 79 AD when the Roman town was wiped off the map due to an extremely violent eruption from the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Despite the harrowing nature of the event, the ash from the volcano buried Pompeii and preserved it wonderfully, giving us an incredible insight into Roman life. The body seen above is just one of the thousands. In many of these ash casts, there is no skeleton, as the acidity of the ash has worn it away. Rather, they are hardened rocks in the shape of the corpses they originally covered. However, some still do contain a skeleton, and some of them can be analysed to understand how a person lived, died and experienced life in a Roman town.