A Walk in Herculaneum

 

 

A Walk in Herculaneum

On the morning of October 24, 79 AD, a catastrophe occurred.  Two vibrant cities in ancient Italy ceased to be.  There has been much discussion as to the “true” date – August or October.  However, a document was uncovered that showed the date to be in October.

Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried both cities in a matter of minutes.  Pompei was the farther city from Mt. Vesuvius and was buried in ash and pumice, for the most part.  The digging to uncover Pompei was much easier in ash and pumice, so it is the more well-known of the two.  Herculaneum, on the other hand, was primarily buried in pyroclastic flow, which was much harder to dig up.  However, pyroclastic flow also preserved more wood objects and some food objects.  Our excursion today focused on Herculaneum, since we visited Pompei during out previous cruise.

Herculaneum is buried under what is now the city of Ercolano, Italy.  There are a couple of primary reasons why more of Herculaneum hasn’t been excavated more fully.  First, the archeologists decided to focus on protecting and preserving the parts of the city uncovered, rather than try to excavate more.  The second reason for not excavating more of the city is that it is under a current city, and there isn’t anything like eminent domain in Italy, where the government can buy your home since there is a good public reason for it.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Catholic Church owns much of the land of Ercolano and have given the archeologists and government a firm “no”, preempting any battle.  You can see Ercolano at the top of this image, with Herculaneum taking up the lower portion of the image. It also gives you an idea of how deeply buried it was, and how difficult the excavation has been.

Herculaneum was primarily made up of upper- and middle-class families, and this image shows the difference in their homes.  The image in the upper right is the front yard area of one of the wealthy families and their balcony rail once looked out to the sea and the area where ships came in to do trade.  The lower left image is a gathering of homes of the middle class – no balconies, and they were located well inland and close together.

This image shows you the sort of patio just below the balcony of the wealthy family, and below the patio area were the boat houses.  The excavation uncovered many skeletons of people who rushed to the boat houses in hopes of being able to get on a boat to escape the volcano’s devastation and certain death.  They were not successful.  Just fyi, the “bones” shown are actually plaster casts of the bones, placed as the people had fallen.  The real bones are in The Museum of Herculaneum Artifacts.   Such a solemn moment to walk by this part of the excavation, even if the “bones” weren’t real.  On a lighter note, this area has been taken over by some wild chickens, and their antics couldn’t help but make us smile.

Jeff has a thing about liking to lean up against ancient buildings, or in this case, pillars.  He only does it, of course, when it’s allowed!  One interesting note about these “red” pillars.  Being buried in pyroclastic flow did preserve the pillars and color, except that it turned gold color pillars into red pillars.  This is true for anything else that we saw during our stroll.  Anything painted gold is now red.

Here are some walls from one of the middle-class homes.  There was a mural on the far back wall, a plaque on another, and a painting that still can be partially identified as a painting/drawing.  There will be more of these to follow!

This may have been the same home as above.  The floor was a mosaic in an  interesting geometric design, and due to being buried in pyroclastic flow, the bed is still preserved, to an extent.  What remains is what was made of metal (legs) and wood (bed frame).

We walked past this sort of doorway to what seemed to be a sidewalk, along with the top corner design.  The area rwe walked on was considered a street, and carts and horses/mules could be found on those streets, when Herculaneum was a thriving community.  These sidewalks seemingly connected the middle-class homes.

Yes, they had fast food in Herculaneum!!  The image on the right was of a street that I mentioned above (the gentleman was one of our co-excursion tourists) and Paulo, our tour guide, was explaining how the front pots were what some food was cooked in, and behind him was an oven and broken oven where breads would be made!  Very cool to see what I perceived as a “modern” convenience in a city that existed prior to 79AD!!

The green lawn area was used for exercise by the men of the city.  Given that there are two distinct areas, I’m kind of thinking one of them may have been used to play some sort of game.  In the back left of the image, you can see some folks walking through a door.  Let’s see where they went!

It is a bathhouse used by the men after their exercise.  The upper left image is of the cloak room where they could hang up their clothes before entering the actual bath.  The image on the upper right is a photo of the roof over the bath.  It was curved with ridges in it so that the steam that rose from the hot bath water, could run down the sides of the walls back into the bath, and not drip on the gentlemen.  The middle lower image is of a tiled floor in the bathhouse.  If you look closely, you can just make out a lighter, almost white area that runs horizontally through the floor.  The floor actually collasped from when the effects of the volcano hit.

As we walked through the rest of the city, we saw what their side streets looked like, and saw that some homes were 2 stories high – others were 3 stories high!   On the far right, you can see a watering fountain that was in the street.  The water was believed to be drinkable, although I’d want to get it as it flowed from the spout, before any horses/mules might have had a drink from the actual tub the water was kept in!!  The wall on the far left is interesting. Throughout the city, the stones making up the walls often are disintegrating.  However, the mortar used to lay the stones/bricks is not disintegrating at all.  In fact, many architects visit this area and do studies on the mortar to see exactly how it’s made.  Since it hasn’t disintegrated in almost 150 years, the thinking is that this would be a good mortar to use for current building projects that require underwater mortar!  So far, they haven’t yet figured out the correct mixture!

These walls were found in another home – perhaps upper middle class or lower wealthy, if that’s a term!!  It’s incredible how much of the artwork painted on the walls, or perhaps laid in tile or stone, survived the volcano.

We all got a bit of a chuckle from the sign on the left in this image.  It’s a sign from outside what would have been a sort of tavern back in the day.  The sign depicts how much each type or size of drink would cost.  Unfortunately, I don’t speak "Herculaneum", so I don’t know what the sign actually says!!  The image on the right is of what is believed to be a wine storage jar.  Now, before the wine drinkers get excited thinking about the great wine it might have contained, Paulo, our guide, told us that the wine back then was a far cry from the wines of today.  The worse wine from today would be considered pretty tasty when compared to what they made up!!

These walls are from a small cathedral that exited in Herculaneum built by a home owner to celebrate and honor a god from that era.  Remember, all that red was gold back in the day.  The most interesting thing, though is the image in the upper right corner.  The black material is actually a petrified wood beam that ran across the ceiling in the small cathedral. Amazing.

And all good things must come to an end.  This is a view from Naples from the balcony in our stateroom just before we left port.  Great day!  Our next stop will be another great city in Italy!! 

Enjoy!