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Thousands of people died - like this man at the "House of Fabius Rufus" - during the volcanic eruption.
The bodies left cavities in the hardened stone, which were filled with plaster.
A tried and tested method since the 1860s.
This is how images of the deceased were created.
Photo: Scala / bpk / Scala
It was probably around 7:30 a.m. when the man jumped off the balcony.
On a normal day, the first rays of the sun would have fallen on Pompeii at this time, but this morning it was dark.
A cloud of ash lay over the city, and only the outlines of the neighboring houses could be made out.
For the past 20 hours, the earth has been shaking again and again, accompanied by deafening rumbles.
The man must have stayed in a house for this time, probably in the hope that the forces of nature would calm down again.
But now he dared to flee, just away from this apocalyptic environment.
When he jumped from the balcony, the 30 to 40-year-old man didn't fall very far.
In the alley under the balcony, pumice stones were piled almost two meters high and had been raining down on the city for hours.
Most were the size of peas or nuts, called lapilli;
because of the low density of volcanic pumice, they were light and could hardly injure people.
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