Pompeii Casts. Victim number 15, known as "The Heavily Clothed Man".

A popular interpretation was that this person was a beggar with a bag for alms.

Found 12th March 1890, outside the Stabian Gate.

Pompeii, September 2015. Plaster cast of victim 15, found 12th March 1890 outside of the Porta Stabiana.

On display as an exhibit in the Summer 2015 exhibition in the amphitheatre.

According to NdS, 12th March 1890, following the excavation of the agger on the right going out from Porta Stabiana, at a distance of about 72 metres from the Gate, the imprint of a human body was found in the compacted layer of ash. Sig. Salvatore Cozzi directed the operation to cast the plaster-cast.

The reproduction was one of the best and most successful made up until that time.

The cast represented a young slim male, lying on his left side, wrapped in a cloak and with short pants that exposed his legs below the knee.

The sandal he was wearing was clearly seen on his right foot.

Nothing more could be said of the left leg because this and the hand turned out badly. Height 1.55 metres.

See Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1890, p. 128.

See Dwyer, E., 2010. Pompeii’s Living Statues. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (p.107 and fig.48).

Radiographic, DNA and histological examinations have been made.

The victim is a male probably of 18 to 20 years of age.

The imprints of different clothing (a large, heavier long-sleeved tunic over a lighter underwear) can be seen in detail on the entire body of the victim; on the right foot a light sandal with strips probably made of leather fixed by nails is clearly visible.

The victim wore a ring on the right hand.

See Osanna, N., Capurso, A., e Masseroli, S. M., 2021. I Calchi di Pompei da Giuseppe Fiorelli ad oggi: Studi e Ricerche del PAP 46, p. 353, Calco n. 15.

Pompeii Cast Project 2015. Victim 15. Photo courtesy of Estelle Lazer.

According to Estelle Lazer, this victim was the sixteenth cast to be made.

The cast was produced in 1890, when the victim was discovered outside the Porta Stabiana.

It has been interpreted as a male. A popular interpretation is that this person was a beggar with a bag for alms.

Very little skeletal material was observed, but there was enough to appreciate that what had previously been interpreted as a begging bag was in fact a miscast hand.

The impression of a very fine sandal on one foot seemed a bit of a discrepancy but this was explained away as a gift from a philanthropist. 

This victim was X-rayed. No bones were found in the head or the upper body.

This individual was consistent in age with a person in their teens. There was almost complete fusion of the distal epiphysis of the right tibia.

Fusion of this bone is usually complete in females between fourteen and sixteen years of age and males between sixteen and twenty.

The right calcaneal epiphysis was not completely fused.

In modern Western populations, fusion of this bone begins between ten and twelve years in females and eleven and fourteen years in males.

It is generally completed between fifteen and sixteen years of age in females and eighteen and twenty years in males.

Sex determination of sub-adults from the skeletal record tends to be unreliable.

See Lazer E., et al. 2020. Inside the Casts of the Pompeian Victims: Results from the First Season of the Pompeii Cast Project In 2015. Papers of the British School at Rome.

See Lazer E., 2009. Resurrecting Pompeii. Abingdon: Routledge, p. 117-119, p. 251-2, fig. 10.3.

Pompeii. May 2018. General view of two more plaster-casts. Photo courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.

In the foreground is the plaster-cast known as Victim 15, the heavily clothed man.

According to Notizie degli Scavi, (1890, p. 128) the body of a man wrapped in his cloak and lying on his left side was found on 12th March 1890 in the excavations outside of the Stabian Gate. It was of a young man, of slender figure, lying on his left side, wound up in his cloak and wearing short pants which exposed his legs from above the knee. On his right foot could be clearly seen the sandal he was wearing.

See Dwyer, E., 2010. Pompeii’s Living Statues. Ann Arbor: Univ of Michigan Press. (p.107-8).

Victim 15, known as the heavily clothed man, photographed by Giorgio Sommer number 1234.

Photo courtesy of Eugene Dwyer.

Victim numbered 15. May 2018. Detail of head and upper body of victim known as “the heavily clothed man”. Courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.

VII.1.8 Pompeii. June 2012. Plaster cast of victim 15, on display in men’s changing room 2.

Photo courtesy of Michael Binns.

VII.1.8 Pompeii. May 2012. Victim 15. Detail of head of plaster cast of body, in men’s changing room 2.

Photo courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.

VII.1.8 Pompeii. May 2012. Victim 15. Plaster cast of body, in men’s changing room 2.

Photo courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.

VII.1.8 Pompeii. April 2005. Plaster cast of victim 15, on display in men’s changing room 2.

Photo courtesy of Klaus Heese.

VII.1.8 Pompeii. May 2012. Rear of plaster cast of victim 15, on display in men’s changing room 2.

Photo courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.