Italian authorities have since confirmed to National Geographic that the find is the result of a significant criminal investigation known as Operazione Artemide (Operation Artemis), led by Italy's national gendarmerie, the Carabinieri. Investigators spotted the tombaroli tunnels last summer and alerted archaeologists from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, who then excavated the previously unknown stable area. The villa, located in the Civita Giuliana area outside the walls of ancient Pompeii, was originally discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, then partially excavated in the 1950s and later sealed. The remains of the third horse are too incomplete to determine whether it was also harnessed at the time of death, says Corbino. The void and skeletal remains of a third horse were also almost completely destroyed by tombaroli, zooarchaeologist Chiara Corbino, who studied the horses, tells National Geographic.Įvidence for bits and bridles around the two cast horses suggests that they were harnessed by people trying to flee the eruption, says Massimo Osanna, general director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. The team also cast two legs from another horse discovered nearby, but the rest of the void left by that body had been destroyed by tomb robbers, known locally as tombaroli, who were tunneling around of the walls of the ancient villa to steal artifacts they could sell on the black market. Since then, it’s mostly been used on humans-and an infamous chained dog-but this was the first attempt on a large mammal. In the late 19th century, archaeologists developed a method of injecting plaster into these voids to capture more details about the dead.
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Watch: Horses Found in Pompeii May Have Been Harnessed to Flee Eruption