Pompeii Pompeii was a thriving city that was heavily populated due to the increased amount of trade. Around the 8th century BC when suddenly the volcano on which it was resting on erupted blowing ash and poisonous gasses killing everyone that did not escape and flee. The ash covered the bodies of Pompeii leaving them in a hardened almost "concrete" shell. This showed an exact replica of the body as it died. Several tests were done to determine facts about the bodies by a wax fill theory. The shell would be filled with waxlike substance to then get a body mold from the shell. One of the things that was hard for anthropologist was that there were no records from Pompeii. Nobody knows how