Herculaneum

On our recent visit to Italy we made our first trip to Herculaneum, the town buried in 79AD, along with Pompeii, by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  We toured Pompeii in 2006 and it was a very different experience from Herculaneum.  Pompeii was a larger city and most of it is excavated.  Less than a quarter of Herculaneum has been excavated and because of the nature of the volcanic flow many buildings have been preserved up to the second and third floors, with interior staircases intact as well as a lot of floor tiling and frescoes in contrast to Pompeii where  only the first floor of most buildings remain.  It is also less visited than Pompeii and the total effect is to make it a more intimate experience.

In the picture to the left above you can see Vesuvius in the background as well as the modern city of Ercolano which lies above most of the buried part of the town.  Today Vesuvius has an elevation of about 4000 but it used to be 1000 feet higher before the eruption blew off the top of the volcano and it buried Herculaneum below about 75 feet of ash.

Here you are looking at the front of the town which used to front on the sea which is now 1/3 of a mile away because of the ash.

It also gives you a good perspective of how much ash covered the town as the level with the trees growing is where things were when the eruption ended.
































One of the main streets with the paving still intact.



















































Below is another street and on the right is the end of the excavation and above it Ercolano.































A pub with marble countertops and holes to keep jars of liquids from which the patrons could be served.
 


































































The next three photos are from the House of Neptune and Amphitrite.  The artist's signature has been found inscribed in Greek; "Alexander of Athens painted".                                                                                                                                                  







































The Hall of the Augustals (below), a meeting house for freedmen (former slaves), dedicated to the Emperor Augustus (27BC-14AD).  An inscription on the wall tells us it was built by the brothers A. Lucius Proculus and A. Lucius Iulianus.  The Hall also contains timbers charred from the eruption 1,934 years ago.




The womens baths still remain with its intact marble tub.