Our excursion to Naples took us to Herculaneum, another of the cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Unlike Pompeii, which is more or less out in the countryside and some two-thirds uncovered, Herculaneum is in the middle of a suburb of Naples, only about twenty minutes by van from the center. Which brings us to the most startling difference: The archeological dig of Herculaneum is surrounded by modern, populated apartment buildings stacked like building blocks. Directly under those apartment buildings is more of the ancient city, yet to be discovered.
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| Not entirely surrounded by apartments. This view faces the sea. |
Standing at the edge of a deep hole, you gaze about ninety feet into a huge pit and see the ruins of the stone city. A long, wide ramp leads you down.
Interesting why there’s such a difference in elevations. I’m not an archeologist, just a star struck gazer of antiquities, so forgive me for painting with broad brush strokes, very possibly mishandling expert phrasing, and glossing over important points. In a word, the difference in elevations is mud.
Time for an explanation. Pompeii was much nearer Vesuvius and during the eruption was pummeled by a destructive showers of stones, some as big or bigger than basketballs.
The citizens left in Pompeii were pelted and the city smashed. Even those who found shelter inside their homes had roofs crash down on them. There was no escape. Then came the molten lava, leaving the city entombed for a few hundred years. Fortunately, most of the population had already read the tea leaves and moved away. Of 20,000 souls living in Pompeii, only about 2,000 perished.
Unlike the much larger Pompeii, picture Herculaneum as a seaside resort for the rich. Well prior to the eruption, the wealthy of Herculaneum evacuated, but some staff and merchants stayed and died. About 300 died along the waterfront and you can still see the skeletons, frozen in their agony.
If not the eruption, what drove the populations of both cities out of town? In years prior, several earthquakes rattled both cities, but the earthquakes alone didn’t cause the population to flee. The quakes burst water pipes and left the city without a steady supply of water.
We’ll leave Pompeii for a moment and concentrate on Herculaneum. Herculaneum was what today we would call a resort town. Many of the homes were owned by the very wealthy and prior to the eruption the city was at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a beachfront. Within the stone homes, there were interiors decorated with huge frescos, spacious dining rooms and living rooms, most with open gardens and some with steam rooms.
The city itself had street side shops selling wine and olive oil, fruit and prepared meals. Under the main streets, ceramic sewer lines carried away wastewater.
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| The wide set stones allowed rainwater runoff. |
The source of the city’s drinking water was some sixty miles away, flowing to Herculaneum via an aqueduct, supplemented with underground cisterns that stored rainwater.
But, when the niceties and necessities of life disappeared, the rich and most other thirsty people felt the immediate need to leave town.
Also, the volcano’s destruction treated Pompeii and Herculaneum differently. In Herculaneum, winds of up to 60 miles per hour, heated to about 400 degree Fahrenheit, swept the city, killing everyone left and even those on the beach hoping for a last minute rescue.
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| Some 2000 year old scorched timbers. |
Next came a viscous slide of hot mud, combined with stones and earth gathered on it’s way down. Mudslide after mudslide followed. Not only was the city buried under some 90 feet of mud and debris, but the mud also covered the cliff overlooking the beach and up to a mile into the Mediterranean Sea.
About the excavation: Herculaneum was re-discovered some ten years prior to Pompeii, both of them in the mid-eighteenth century. In the case of Herculaneum, a man was digging a well and uncovered antiquities.
Early excavations were haphazardly done by neighbors and fortune seekers looking for valuables. Then came work ordered by the King of Naples, who also apparently plundered marble and such for his palace.
As you can guess, digging through centuries of mud was no easy task, but easier than digging though centuries of lava rock, as was the case in Pompeii.
As I said, there is more of Herculaneum to be discovered in the surrounding area. Archeologists have dug tunnels and exposed bits and pieces. Unfortunately, because of the surrounding and highly populated neighborhoods, Herculaneum may never be fully exposed.
Old ruins? So what?
The more you see of the ancient world, the more you begin to understand history itself is built in layers, many of which will never be uncovered. We know something of the Greeks and the Romans, but less about the civilizations that came before. Like much of science, archeology and anthropology and the many other ‘ologies are a road of continuing discovery and a constant quest for knowledge of the human past.
Even as amazing as they are, when we walk the streets of Pompeii and Herculaneum, we are also walking on the graves of even earlier peoples.
Seeing and learning more of the Greeks and Romans is a worthy start to seeing and gaining insights into our own, modern world, as well as appreciating the remarkable development of prior civilizations. As has been said, we progress greatly, but only because we stand on the shoulders of giants.
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| Note the scorched walls. |
