Enlarge (credit score: Archaeological Park of Pompeii)

The close by volcano blackened the sky and swallowed town in clouds of ash; centuries later, robotic canine now prowl the ruins, guarding town’s useless towards the ravages of time.

That’s not a film plot. It’s what’s truly taking place on the 2,000-year-old Roman ruins of Pompeii, in Southern Italy. Boston Dynamics’ robotic canine, Spot, will assist archaeologists and preservation crews by patrolling the 66-hectare website for indicators of abrasion, injury, and looting.

“They’re good canine, Brent”

The volcanic ash that buried Pompeii in 79 CE turned a thriving Roman coastal metropolis right into a well-preserved tomb—and a time capsule. At this time, the archaeological website is likely one of the most well-known on this planet, and it continues to disclose new glimpses of life in a cosmopolitan Roman metropolis in the course of the empire’s heyday, like an historic fast-food counter excavated in 2020.