POMPEII — For the first time, 22 of Pompeii’s best-preserved plaster casts of eruption victims, among them a child and a couple who died fleeing together, have been brought out of the houses, streets, and city gates where they were discovered and united in a single space.

The installation marks a departure from decades of displaying the casts as archaeological artefacts scattered across their original locations. Instead, the Palestra Grande exhibition space presents them as a human memorial, with each figure arranged to emphasise personal story, final posture, and expression. The Pompeii Archaeological Park inauguration was described by Italy’s culture minister as a gallery of rare visual power. The exhibition opens to the public March 12 and brings together casts of people killed during the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.