The 'decapitated man of Pompeii' WASN'T killed by a falling rock: Archaeologists find fully intact skull of disabled man who died trying to escape the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius

• Man was seemingly crushed to death after he was inflicted with a leg injury
• His skeleton is still pinned down by the 300-kilo (660lb) stone that killed him
• Now his intact skull has been found nearby by archaeologists  

The skull of a disabled man who died during the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago has been found in Pompeii. 

It had been believed the 35-year-old man was beheaded by a falling rock as he tried to escape the eruption when his headless body was discovered earlier this year. 

Archaeologists have now discovered his skull nearby, with a wide open mouth - and say it wasn't ripped off his body until relatively recently. 

It had been believed the 35-year-old man was beheaded by a falling rock as he tried to escape the Pompeii eruption, but now his skull has been found intact.

'Now we know that the death was not due to the impact of the block, but presumably from probable asphyxiation due to the pyroclastic flow,' wrote the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

Director Massimo Osanna revealed the find.

'We have just found the skull too, with the mouth open wide in an amazing way', he told an archaeological forum.  

'He did not die of heat shock or because of the rock that fell on him, but from suffocation,' Osanna told the forum. 

It had been believed the 35-year-old man was beheaded by a falling rock as he tried to escape the eruption when his headless body was discovered earlier this year. 

'In the early phase of the excavation it appeared that the upper part of the thorax and the skull, which had not yet been found, had been severed and dragged downwards by a stone block which had struck the victim: this preliminary hypothesis arose from the observation of the position of the boulder compared to the empty space of the body impressed into the cinerite,' the team wrote.

In fact, they say, part of the surrounding buildings 'slipped' as a tunnel collapsed,  

'His death was presumably not, therefore, due to the impact of the stone block, as initially assumed, but likely to asphyxia caused by the pyroclastic flow' they say.

The identified skeletal remains consist of the upper part of the thorax, the upper limbs, the skull and jaw.

The skeleton was discovered at a recently uncovered area of the Pompeii archaeological site, near Naples, Italy.

An earlier analysis of his right foot suggested he was disabled due to an injury that left him unable to escape when the volcano blew in 79 AD, burying the city in rock and ash. 

The skeleton was discovered at a recently uncovered area of the Pompeii archaeological site, near Naples, Italy.

The doomed city's Regio V area was found as part of new excavation work and scientists are exploring the region to find out more about life in ancient Pompeii.

Discovered lying on his back, at first it appeared the man's skeleton was pinned down by the rock that killed him almost 2,000 years ago.

The director general of the Pompeii archaeological site, Massimo Osanna, called the discovery 'dramatic and exceptional'.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii, Oplontis, and Stabiae under ashes and rock fragments, and the city of Herculaneum under a mudflow.

An early analysis of his foot (pictured) suggests he was disabled due to a leg injury that left him unable to escape when the volcano blew in 79 AD, burying Pompeii in rock and ash

The 35-year-old man was seemingly beheaded by a falling rock as he tried to escape the eruption, which is believed to have killed around 30,000 people

Of the 1,150 bodies recovered by archaeologists at Pompeii, 394 were killed by falling pumice and debris from collapsed buildings.

The remaining 756 victims were killed by a column of superheated gas and ash called a pyroclastic surge.

The skeleton of a child who tragically perished in the eruption was uncovered in the ruins of a public baths in Pompeii in February.

A 300-kilo (660lb) stone presumed to have been fired through the air during the eruption landed on him and crushed his head and upper body 

Workers restoring the ancient thermal recreational area discovered the body, believed to belong to a child aged seven or eight at the time. 

The crouching child is thought to have been trying to take shelter from the ensuing cataclysm when they were overwhelmed by deadly volcanic gases, experts said.

Pompeii's director Massimo Osanna said in a statement that the skeleton was found during work to shore up the main ancient baths in the sprawling archaeological site.

The skeleton was uncovered at a recently discovered area of the Pompeii archaeological site, near Naples

Of the 1,150 bodies recovered by archaeologists at Pompeii, 394 were killed by falling pumice and debris from collapsed buildings

The skeleton was removed in April from the baths' area for study, including DNA testing to determine its sex.

Professor Osanna said the skeleton might have been first spotted during a 19th-century excavation of the area, since the leg bones were orderly placed near the pelvis, but - for reasons unknown - wasn't removed by those earlier archaeologists.

Speaking to La Repubblica newspaper, he said:  'This is an extraordinary find, in an area which we thought had been fully excavated in the 19th century.

'What we can say from an early analysis is that the child was between seven and eight years old.'  

The skeleton of a child who tragically perished in the eruption was uncovered in the ruins of a public baths in Pompeii in February (pictured). The body is believed to belong to a child aged seven or eight at the time

The crouching child is thought to have been trying to take shelter from the ensuing cataclysm when they were overwhelmed by deadly volcanic gases, experts said