Since then, what’s left of Pompeii has been buried beneath 20 feet of volcanic ash. The ancient city is now an archeological site, and researchers have made a chilling discovery while searching through a villa outside of Pompeii.

Since 2017, archaeologists have been giving special attention to a suburban villa north of Pompeii called Civita Giuliana. Researchers have already recovered a collection of historical objects from the site of the villa, including a “ceremonial chariot” with the remains of three horses.

Archaeologists stumbled upon a “secret room” that was used to house enslaved servants before the volcanic eruption wiped out the entire population. Researchers were stunned by what they had discovered, and their findings painted a clearer picture of what life was like in 79 A.D. than ever before.

Under ancient Roman law, slaves were considered “property” and were not viewed as people. The same room also held a number of equine equipment and accessories, leading researchers to believe that slaves were responsible for tending to the horses and the stables.

Scientists have determined that the smaller beds were meant for a child and that an entire enslaved family once lived in the hidden room. They also believe that the room was used for storage, as a pile of eight Roman jars were found.

“This new important discovery enriches our understanding of the everyday life of the ancient Pompeiians, especially that class in society about which little is still known,” he said. The room was pristinely preserved due to the layers of volcanic ash that have entrenched it for almost 2,000 years.

“This is a window into the precarious reality of people who seldom appear in historical sources,” he said. “It helps us to discover a part of the ancient world which we would otherwise know little about, but which is nonetheless extremely important.”

But this time, researchers wanted to understand how the lower class once lived. To achieve this, they excavated an untouched part of Pompeii, where they unearthed the hidden slave room that holds a vast amount of information about how enslaved servants lived thousands of years ago.

“Pompeii as an archaeological site is the longest continually excavated site in the world,” he said. “Because of this, what we find in Pompeii is that every step in the development of the science of archaeology was tested out in Pompeii with mixed results.”

“It’s kind of a lost neighborhood of the city,” said Ellis. “When they first cleared it of debris in the 1870s, they left this block for ruin (because it had no large villas) and it was covered over with a terrible jungle of vegetation.” But now, “We’re digging in an area where a lot of Pompeians died during the eruption,” he revealed.

The poor and the enslaved were certainly not the upper crust of Pompeii’s society, but taking a deeper look at how they lived is vital to get a better scope of the ancient city’s hierarchy. The living arrangements for peons were far from ideal, especially when compared to how wealthy individuals were treated.

“At the end of a day of intense mental processing and physical labor, when the tools are being packed up and put away for the night, I often take a moment to remind myself of that connection with the individuals whose homes and workshops we’re digging up.”