Herculaneum

Herculaneum Old, New, and Vesuvius

Herculaneum much like Pompeii was a thriving Roman city populated due to the fertility of the land and the beauty of the location itself. Also like Pompeii it was covered over by the poisonous hot ashy destruction of Vesuvius on August twenty fourth 79 AD.  However Herculaneum was discovered much differently instead of the grave robber type thieves that stumbled upon Pompeii Herculaneum was found when a man came across some marble debris. After it was realized that something much larger might be down there and they immediately started exploring and unfortunately some pillaging did begin to occur. During the initial searches a great deal of the friezes and walls were destroyed by the
Twenty-nine years after it was accidentally uncovered Charles of Bourbon set up to dig in a proper way to see what it was that had been found. He set up a series of archeologists through the years of digging including Rocco Gioacchino D’Alcubierre, Carlo Weber, and Francesco La Vega. The digs were shut down for a number of years due to the people who lived around the site and resumed when

Recreation of the Eruption

Francesco I then later by Giuseppe Fiorelliand king Vittorio Emanuele II.
Among the first things uncovered were the theatre, which included the wall that was hit when digging the original well, and the Villa of Papiri that is thought to have belonged to the father and law of Caesar.

Some of the most interesting finds of the time have come from Herculaneum, when they began to unearth the boat houses along the beach they found the first Roman skeletons not just in the position they died at Pompeii with plaster injected but entire skeletons. Due to Herculaneum being closer to Vesuvius the city was also covered in lava as well as ash and pumice keeping things better preserved than the site at Pompeii. Some organic materials have been unearthed intact including some pieces of wood and clothing. Herculaneum was under about 30 meters of the ash pumice and lava making it over 3 times as deep as most parts of Pompeii. Also due to how close it was people were nearly instantly killed by the heat wave that hit after the eruption. A surge of heat hit at about nine hundred and thirty degrees fahrenheit that the skeletons they found had exploded skulls and some of the long bones in the body had even split from the heat.

Ring Lady

One great undertaking in the unearthing of Herculaneum is the fact that a settlement had sprung up on top of the remains of the lost city, so while they wanted to excavate they had to do it more strategically then other digs. They began digging tunnels into the town in 1738 and surveying what was down there. They tunneled for a long time until 1828 when open air digs were finally allowed at this site. The most interesting things that they have found in the Herculaneum digs are the skeletons by the shore at the boat house. Not only are they the first full Roman skeletons to be found, but they were preserved with some clothing or other precious objects. Like the one that is now known as the ring lady. The land was excavated in a very procedural way that would have been unheard of in the time of Schliemann but even so it is causing problems.

Herculaneum now

Boat House where the Ring Lady and other Skeletons were found

Excavations of Herculaneum have actually come to a stop to try to help preserve what they have unearthed. While the land was remarkably preserved it began deteriorating as soon as it was uncovered. The high concentration of visitors to the site and vandalism are also working against conservation efforts.