The ash that followed the surges settled in thick layers over the bodies where they lay. It was fine enough, and the conditions were sealed enough, to preserve the exact outline of each person: the way their clothing draped, the pattern of a sandal sole, the curve of a face, the configuration of objects they carried. As the organic matter — flesh, hair, fabric — decomposed over the following centuries, it left hollow cavities inside the hardened volcanic deposits. These cavities were the raw material from which Pompeii’s plaster casts would eventually be made.
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## Giuseppe Fiorelli and the First Casts
When systematic excavation of Pompeii began in 1748, under the patronage of Charles III of Bourbon, the initial approach was shaped more by the desire for art objects and valuable finds than by an interest in understanding the site as a whole. Tunnels were dug into walls; frescoes were removed; statues were carried off to royal collections. The approach was destructive in ways that later archaeology would recognize as catastrophic for the interpretive record.
Giuseppe Fiorelli became director of excavations at Pompeii in 1860 and reorganized both the physical work and the conceptual framework of the project. He introduced the grid system of *regiones*, *insulae*, and numbered doorways that is still used today to record the location of finds. He required excavators to work systematically, recording positions and contexts rather than stripping sites for objects. He was the first to recognize what the hollow cavities in the volcanic deposits represented, and he developed the technique of filling them.