Herculaneum: Pompeii's Sister City

Herculaneum was a smaller town than Pompeii, but it is no less important to the study of life in Ancient Rome.  It was a resort town situated on the shoreline and had a population of approximately 4-6000 people. The town was named after the mythological Greek hero, Hercules. It is a stunning testament to the Roman past and is an amazingly, completely preserved museum of life in the 1st Century AD. 

Herculaneum Street

When Vesuvius erupted, the winds initially blew southeast toward Pompeii, dropping ash and debris over that area. Herculaneum was only mildly affected at first since it sat to the west of the volcano. While Pompeii was buried by falling debris, only a little ash fell in Herculaneum and there was, at first, little damage.  Regardless, it was long thought that most of the people fled the city out of apprehension since early excavations found only a few skeletons, some of them on the beaches, like the famous Ring Lady. Analysis helped to establish many details about her (and the others found), but, sadly, her name is lost to the ages.

One of the most famous victims in Herculaneum is the Ring Lady found at the boat docks. Judging by her bone analysis and amount of gold that she wore, she is thought to have been very wealthy. She was about 46 years old. At a height of  approximately 5'1'', or 157 cm, she was actually above average for her time period and probably gave birth to two or three children in her lifetime. - Stock photo

In 1981, archaeologists reached the boat houses where they discovered 300 skeletons huddled together under the arches facing the sea.  It is speculated that these people gathered here waiting for rescue, but during the night a fast moving cloud of ash and debris reached the town.  This cloud, also known as a pyroclastic surge, is what happens when the ash and debris that blew into the air collapses back into itself. It moved up to 100mph and reached a temperature of over 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius) of hot ash and gases. Even though the people were sheltered from the debris of the cloud in the boat house, the temperature was so intense that it resulted in instant death.  It is even reported that the heat caused contractions of limbs and fractures of bone.  There was no time for thought or terror, death happened that quickly.  

Unlike Pompeii, where the ash that enclosed victims created cavities that could be filled with plaster and show the shape of the people as they perished, in Herculaneum the rate of the vaporization of the flesh by the hot cloud did not preserve anything for the ash to solidify around.  It has been found by further research that, where prior it was thought that people suffocated by air thick with ash, in Herculaneum, it was the heat that killed everyone who had remained in the town. 

In the boathouse Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

There were six such flows and surges over the course of the eruption that subsequently buried the town, but they caused little damage to the structures, in places even carbonizing wood frames, doors, and furniture.  Because of the rapid burial of the town, many structures remained intact, including upper floors. Even tables that had been set for meals remained upright and buried as if they were just set yesterday.  This was a very different fate than Pompeii where the gradual buildup of ash and rocks caused upper floors and walls to collapse. 

Wood partition and upper levels preserved - stock photo

Alcove in the House of Neptune and Amphitrite - stock photo

 

The houses in Herculaneum were similar to those in Pompeii in design and layout (in concurrence with the period).  The most famous of them, however, is the Villa of the Papyri, named so for over a thousand blackened, carbonized papyrus scrolls found in a library there.  It is considered the only intact library from antiquity to have survived into recent years.  Some of the scrolls have been unrolled with some success, revealing works of Greek philosophers. Researchers are hoping that using x-rays and computer processing may help them read them more easily and also potentially with those that have yet to be unrolled (thus eliminating the risk of damage to them).  No one knows for certain who owned the villa with its extensive library, but speculation is that it may have been originally owned by Julius Caesar’s father in law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesonius.

Carbonized scroll and Greek writing on unscrolled papyri - stock photo

Like Pompeii and other cities affected by the eruption, Herculaneum seemed destined to be forgotten forever.  Then in the 18th century, a farmer digging a well discovered the town.  It was the first recorded discovery of the city in 1700 years, although it is speculated that over the years people may have found things here and there while digging wells, etc.  In 1738 excavations began, and shortly thereafter, Pompeii was discovered as well. Excavations were concentrated mostly on Pompeii at that time, which buried under less stone than Herculaneum.  Still, frescoes and "treasure" were taken from the city and shown in private collections for years until proper archaeology (still a developing science) took over and museums were established as public opinion leaned more toward conservation and research rather than displaying for private pleasures.  To this day, it is estimated that 75% of Herculaneum still remains covered.  Like Pompeii, these areas that are still buried are guaranteed full of future archaeological treasures - not of gold, but of timeless history and stories from beyond the grave. ~S.A. Edwards

For further reading, we found these articles interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Papyri

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_herculaneum/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/arts/design/herculaneums-ruins-are-revived-by-philanthropy.html?_r=0

We recommend these books as well:

Herculaneum, Italy's Buried Treasure, by Joseph Jay Deiss

Herculaneum: Past and Future, by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

Cities of Vesuvius: Pompeii and Herculaneum, by Mary Beard, Michael Grant

The Casts: Frozen In Death

Man covering his face, sitting in storage room among amphorae and birdbaths (not found there); photo: http://www.123rf.com/photo_10445437_excavations-of-pompeii.html

Imagine, if you will, you are home one morning just finishing your first meal and about to start on the business of the day when all of a sudden you hear a deafening explosion and the bright day goes dark. You look outside to your garden and all you see are massive clouds, dark and fiery, blasting up to the sky from the distance. You look across the way and see some bright blue sky. You've never seen something like this before and don’t know what is happening. You decide to go back to what you were just doing…after all, the sun is still shining somewhere and it is probably just a large fire. It isn't near your home, so you pay it no mind – but you make a mental note to ask your friends about it later after you are done with your morning tasks. It might be a great story for the dinner couches.    

But after a few minutes you hear your neighbors outside talking loudly about what happened. Curiosity gets the best of you and you step outside your door. In those few minutes where you tried to ignore nature, the sun has now completely disappeared behind the smoky clouds. The ground is rumbling, and the mountain looks engulfed in massive fires. Your neighbors are pointing, some with panic on their faces, others telling you to get back inside and lock your doors, some to gather your belongings. Nah, you think, this will pass in a few hours like a winter storm or a summer squall, it doesn't even look like the clouds are heading over your way. Your neighbor shakes his head at you. He’s determined to flee and if you won’t join him then you are left to Fate. You see a fine ash start to fall from the sky. 

Still not sensing the immediate danger, you may wait awhile to see what happens. You may open your house to shelter others, or gather your family and slaves around you to pray to the household gods. Only the ash and pumice continues to pile higher and higher on roofs that were never meant for more weight than that of a man. You all gather in one room, along with the pet dog and a lamp for light and some precious belongings, as one by one the roofs of the outer rooms collapse and the gardens fill with stones as high as a man. Those stones eventually block every exit and door until you cannot open a door or climb out. You are all trapped, and others outside cannot get in. You try to tunnel out, but the stones are too heavy and keep collapsing in on themselves. After several hours of the massive building up of falling stone, the ceiling collapses on you all and that is the end. 

Or, perhaps you listened to your neighbor and your gut feeling was that this was a dangerous event. You go back inside to get your family together and all your belongings. What do you take and what do you leave? Jewelry, money, statues of deities who are supposed to protect you and your household. As you go about gathering all these things, the rain of stones does not cease. What was once ash, is now mixed with hot pumice stones that are falling at such a rate of speed as to injure those who do not have any protection. By time you have delayed by gathering all that you want to take, and you lock your doors against vandals (for truly an abandoned house is a temptation not to be looked over by thieves!), the ground is full of the ash and stones as high as your ankles and calves and, in some places against walls, your waist. It is slow going, and every street is filled with panicked people, forgotten carts, and dropped belongings. Slaves and masters alike. Women, children, dogs. You wind through the streets in darkness toward one or more of the city gates, but find that more time is wasted down one street, only to backtrack up another. The ground is rumbling, the air thick with ash, some homes are on fire from knocked over lamps and cloth that caught fire from hot stones. It is the only light other than what lamps some try to carry. You can’t believe it could still be day. Time slows, and at the same time seems to speed up as anxiety overpowers all senses.

This gold-and-silver statuette of mercury was found with a body near the city's harbor gate. (Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali-Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei/Field Museum, Chicago.)

Discovered with the body of a woman fleeing down an alley in Pompeii, this long necklace, or catena-with its 94 ivy leaves of gold foil-is one of the finest pieces of jewelry found in the region. The woman also carried two uncut gems and the family silver. (Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali-Soprintendenza archeologica di Napoli e Caserta/Field Museum,)

The gold bracelet in the form of a two-headed snake, a good-luck symbol, weights 1.3 pounds. (Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali-Soprintendenza archeologica di Napoli e Caserta/Field Museum, Chicago.)

You duck down an alley as a shortcut, and come across a group of people at the end of a street blocked by an overturned cart. They are climbing a hill of stones that have covered the cart already. You join them, pulling your wife and child with you, dropping valuables along the way. The stones and cart are not the biggest barrier, however, it is the throng of panicked people in your way. All of a sudden, the air becomes thick with a hot wind of ash and you find you are choking for breath, there is no oxygen and there is no relief. One by one the people around you collapse, your wife and child as well. You try to lift yourself up to go to them, putting the fabric of your tunic over your nose, but to no avail. You are buried by the stone, you are suffocated by the hot gas. And then you are no more.

When Vesuvius erupted on August 24 and 25, A.D. 79, some 2,600 inhabitants perished in Pompeii alone (a plaster cast of a child found under a staircase). (Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali-Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei/Field Museum, Chicago.)

Close up of man covering his face. Photo: George Kourounis

Pompeii excavation - www.travelthruhistory.tv

 

We come across these stories, so horrific and universal because of the ingenuity of one person. In the infancy of the science of archaeology, an archaeologist named Giuseppe Fiorelli discovered that there were cavities in the stone while they were digging in the buried city of Pompeii. He came up with the inventive idea to pour plaster into the stone and, when the pumice was chipped away, the faces emerged. The man in the street on one elbow, reaching for his family. The boy hiding under the stairs. The man sitting and covering his face, as if to shield his eyes from the disaster and chaos. Bodies struggling to breathe and move. And the animals: the dog that was left behind, still chained to the floor, writhing in his death throes as he suffocated. The skeletons found were telling, but the casts were more distinct. To look and analyze a skeleton, how and where it was buried and with what, is one thing, but it is another experience entirely to look into the detailed eyes of someone who’s casted face shows they died in agony. They are an eerie reminder that sometimes no matter how we lived or to what gods we pay homage, a natural disaster knows no class distinction. 

  

During excavations in the 19th century.http://fineartamerica.com/featured/2-pompeii-plaster-cast-granger.html

From the casts of these people to the skeletons, the victims of Pompeii and Herculaneum ring true to us because we see ourselves in them. Natural disasters happen around the world and in this day of fast technology it is relatively simple to see it scroll across our screens or in our newsfeeds and know details the moment they happen. It took 1700 years for this disaster to be rediscovered and another 300 years to document the homes and lives of the people who were buried and were, quite amazingly, frozen in death. And what we learned from how they lived and died 2000 years ago is that we, as humans, are inherently the same. ~ S.A. Edwards

If you wish to read more about the people and lives of the cities, we found the following e-articles very informative (even if the exhibits are not recent):

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/article1228351.ece

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/resurrecting-pompeii-109163501

For book lovers, we also recommend the following books (with great illustrations):

Pompeii: The Vanished City, by Time Life Books

The Complete Pompeii, by Joanne Berry

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, by Paul Roberts