Excavators at Pompeii have brought to light two almost life-size statues carved into the wall of a funerary monument.
The reliefs portray a man and a woman, rendered with a naturalism that lends them striking immediacy.
Pompeii itself was catastrophically entombed when a neighbouring volcano erupted nearly two millennia ago.
The deep mantle of ash and pumice paradoxically preserved the city, freezing a single day of Roman life in extraordinary detail.
Scholars are now scrutinising the figures for evidence of period dress, adornment, and burial conventions.
These carved likenesses offer an intimate window onto the identities and status of Pompeii's former residents.
With every fresh season of digging, the buried city continues to surrender treasures that reshape our picture of antiquity.