These casts show people so realistically and so full of life right at the moment of their deaths. I look at them and I can imagine what these people might have been thinking, even though it was almost 2,000 years ago. It drives home this feeling I have that the people of Pompeii were probably just like us. What an amazing realization. When we study history, even so very far back, we’re studying human beings who had all the same emotions as we do.

Pompeii is a moving and memorable disaster story because of the very complete picture we have of what life was like right before the eruption. Perhaps this is why, even after years and years of exhibitions, books, movies, and documentaries about Pompeii, there is still interest in new TV specials, interactive CD-ROM games and even board games being created based on the activities of Vesuvius and Pompeii’s history.