For centuries, the dominant narrative surrounding Pompeii remained unshakable: a city frozen in time, where the lethal fury of Vesuvius in 79 AD left no one alive.
And yet, a closer look at the archaeological findings comes to completely overturn this absolute myth. The total absence of specific objects from the site of the disaster revealed an obvious clue that had eluded researchers for generations, proving that hundreds, if not thousands, of residents managed to escape at the last minute.
Visits by Dr. Steven Tuck (professor and chair of the department of classics at Miami University in Oxford) to Pompeii over the years revealed what he calls "evidence through absence", namely evidence from objects that were missing on that fateful day, such as empty household shrines and stables.
"When you look closer, you realize there are a lot of things missing that should be there," Tuck told CNN. "There are no boats tied to the dock, and all the chests where people kept their cash in the Roman world are empty. Eventually, it occurred to me that this doesn't fit with the story that everyone died."
Over the past decade, Tuck has been working on the Pompeii Survivors Project, an exhaustive investigation into those who managed to escape before Pompeii and neighboring Herculaneum were destroyed. His findings were published in his 2025 book "Escape From Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and its Survivors".
He scanned online databases created by international teams of scientists to search for Latin name inscriptions from both cities, which had been carved into carved stone slabs nearly 2,000 years ago. Tuck then tracked down the names to see if their stories ended on the day of the eruption.
The journeys of three of the people Tuck searched for dominate the new documentary series "Pompeii: Out of Time", executive produced and presented by actor Tom Hiddleston, who studied classics at Cambridge University in the UK and first visited the city in 1998 as a 17-year-old fascinated by history.
Where the survivors went
Tracking names from about 20,000 inscriptions led Tuck along the path of survivors to 48 Roman cities.
The survivors remained within a radius of about 20 miles (32 kilometers) of Pompeii and Herculaneum, looking for communities that presented a similar feel. Many were freed slaves and members of the merchant class.
However, there are key differences between the survivors, Tuck noted. Residents from Herculaneum stayed closer to the edges of the disaster. These individuals were poorer and entered into marriages within their own refugee community.
Tuck was able to reconstruct the story of a woman who lost her husband, but managed to escape Pompeii with her newborn daughter. They reached Ostia, the port of ancient Rome, where she remarried a physician to the emperor. The professor also found evidence that her daughter later married and had children.
"People from Pompeii dispersed more," Tuck stated. "They seem to have had better assets and better connections. They re-established their businesses. Their children ran for public office. They made religious dedications for deities that there is no evidence were worshipped in Pompeii. They really seem to have adapted to their new communities."
Tuck mentioned he believes the residents of Herculaneum stayed close because they came from a smaller, more close-knit community, while Pompeians were more connected to the wider ancient Roman world and possessed a diverse population of foreigners.
Working on the project for survivors, which allowed Tuck to trace some family trees for a few hundred years, changed the way he views the history of Pompeii.
"It shifts the narrative to a story of survival, hope, and something that is a truly different, human-centered story that continues," he said.
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