A chilling cast of characters

They died where they fell, their bodies quickly encased and then “frozen” in volcanic ash spewed by Mount Vesuvius during a violent, A.D. 79 eruption that buried Pompeii and surrounding communities.

Gradually, their remains disintegrated, leaving behind hollow cavities.

When archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli filled these cavities with liquid plaster in 1860, the results were haunting: body casts of people and animals in their last moments of life, so detailed that facial features and expressions, even folds in clothing, were visible.

“A Day in Pompeii,” a special exhibition at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, includes nine resin casts made from these original molds.

Also displayed are 32 skeletal casts representing some 300 skeletons found along the shoreline outside Herculaneum, four miles north of Pompeii. These victims had successfully fled but were caught in a pyroclastic surge while awaiting rescue.

Three facial reconstructions depict members of the house of Marcus Julius Polybius, a Pompeian killed, along with 12 relatives and slaves, in his partially collapsed house.

But it’s the body casts that truly mesmerize.

A man wearing boots and a hooded cloak crouches, knees drawn to his chest.

A couple huddle together, the man supporting himself on one arm and covering the supine woman’s face as if to shield or comfort her.

A young woman who died along the Via Stabiae, maybe while struggling to reach the harbor, sprawls facedown, legs and buttocks exposed. I can see the imprints of a long sleeve and her tunic bunched around her waist, perhaps pulled up in a fruitless effort to keep her mouth and nose clear of ash.

A guard dog, still wearing its bronze-studded collar, lies contorted on its back, mouth open and front paws stretched skyward. Left chained to a post by its fleeing master, the dog tried frantically to save itself by climbing atop accumulating piles of pumice — until its chain ran out and it suffocated.