rebuilt with Third-Style frescoes, also as famous as the earlier ones for their quality. Villa A was probably uninhabited and still in the process of being rebuilt at the time of the AD 79 eruption, as a number of tools were found on the site and statues and columns were stored away from their proper places. The power of the eruption made roofs and walls collapse, columns to break and be thrown sideways so that on excavation many pieces of walls were difficult to reassemble. Villa B A second villa, Villa B, was discovered in 1974, east of Villa A, during the construction of a school and partially excavated until 1991. In contrast to the sumptuously decorated Villa Poppaea, Villa B is much smaller and lacks the latter's lavish decoration. Villa B is a rustic, two-story structure with many rooms left unplastered and with tamped earth floors. The structure's plan reveals a central courtyard surrounded by a two-story peristyle of Nocera tufa columns. Nevertheless, more than seventy rooms were found on both ground and second-story levels. On the ground floor all four sides of the courtyard have barrel-vaulted rooms in opus incertum and opus reticulatum. A bronze seal bearing the name of L. Crassius Tertius was found at the site. It was built at the end of the 2nd c. BC. The complex was part of a wider settlement built before the construction of neighbouring Villa A. This villa was not deserted at the time of the eruption: the remains of 54 people were recovered in one of the rooms of the villa, perishing in the surge that hit Oplontis. They were split into two groups, one group possessing fine jewellery, silverware, and coins whilst the other group had none. Recent archaeology has shown that it suffered unique type of destruction because of its proximity to the sea, different from Pompeii or Herculaneum. The volcanic eruption generated a pyroclastic flow that sped down the mountain toward Oplontis. The impact of the flow on the sea surface led to a type of "tsunami" which caused the violent entry and deposition of a water-heavy layer in the barrel-vaulted rooms (similar to the deposit that buried the skeletons on the shore of Herculaneum). The people sheltering at Oplontis died beneath a mixed mass of superheated gas, ash, and water. The impact of the wave probably also caused the collapse of the barrel-vaults. Some