Herculaneum

[khiemtran]

On now to Herculaneum...




While Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash falling from above, Herculaneum was hit by pyroclastic flows surges - waves of hot gas and particles that had the side effect (apart from wiping out every living creature) of filling up the building with ash so fast that they didn't collapse. As a result, you can see a lot more standing buildings and get more of a feel of how the streetscape would really have looked.




This view shows the excavations at Herculaneum set right amongst the modern city of Ercolano (renamed after the former city). Note that the roofs are all reconstructed. The skylights over the bathhouse in the foreground might not be entirely authentic.

Another view of old and new...


And this one gives a view up to Versuvius.


Walking around, you can imagine how the streets used to look...





Okay, so the carts went on the road while pedestrians walked on the sides. But how did the carts turn around?

I made a mistake here. I hired an audio guide in Pompeii, but didn't use it much because the free handbook was so good and so much faster. In Herculaneum, my friend and I just used the free maps, but it turned out that we missed a lot of the extra detail. The best I can say is this is some sort of shop...



A preserved sign from an ancient wine shop...

The frescoes in the College of the Augustales were particularly good..




And in "House No. 22"...

Neptune and Amphitrite...


Two thousand year old iron bars...

And an original door.

Note that the metal frame holding the protective glass in place is already starting to look worse than the original seared wood.

The tiles for this mosaic were tiny - smaller than a centimetre across.



The same diagonal brick pattern as I saw in Pompeii. This time the mortar has lasted better than the bricks.


Faces on the wall...


The Myth of Telephus. Which apparently involves Achilles healing Telephus, instead of stabbing him after chatting up his wife. This is why you need to pay for the audio guide...

Some columns...

Note how you can see that they are actually made of brick inside. Marble's expensive, you know...


Two thousand years later, the city is gone, but children still play in the atrium...


I didn't really get a good picture capturing just how deep the city was buried under the "tuff" (a sort of light rock made up of volcanic ash), but this view gives a bit of an idea. The wall on the right is basically all tuff and just about everything we've just seen has been excavated from it.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

What a fascinating set of pictures. I hadn't realised so much of Herculaneum was still standing.

Also, total coincidence time, on my friends list your post immediately followed this one by endlessrarities. I feel I ought to introduce you to one another!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, apparently there's been a big effort in recent years to really try to preserve Herculaneum, instead of just carting things off to museums. Although large parts have also been restored rather than preserved. Any wood you see, apart from a view pieces under glass, will be modern. All the tourist ramps and facilities looked quite new and the whole thing was very well presented. You could also talk to some of the archeologists on site, who were busy restoring things.

And thanks for the introduction! Hopefully, we didn't elbow past each other somewhere along the line...

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

What I can't help wondering is whether we were both there at exactly the same time!!! I've been looking carefully at the photos to see if I can spot myself wandering around looking dazed, exhausted and confused...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Well, that's cool... I was in Herculaneum on Thursday the 14th and in Pompeii on Sunday the 10th. The rest of the time I was in Sorrento, doing doing nerd stuff. But did you go to Rome after that?

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

'Fraid not. Being residents of the good old UK, we can break our Grand Tour up into stages. Venice is next on our list (don't hold your breath - it won't be for a while...) with Rome next after that.

NB: Please note that our itinerary is based upon the likelihood of certain places suffering Almost Certain Doom in the near future. In the case of Pompei, it was shifted to the top of the list not because we believe Vesuvio's going to blow big time, but because last year's wet winter resulted in the collapse of some major frescos and there was some weeping and wailing about lack of investment in the site from the authorities.

In the case of Venice... Well, rising sea levels and global warming are always a concern.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The wineshop sign is really affecting, because it's such a sign of ordinary life. The wall paintings are famous (well, or equivalent ones from Pompeii are), but we don't generally have wall paintings in our daily life, and they remind one of things like cultic mysteries, which we don't have much in daily life, either--whereas shop signs, and wine stores, we still have--so it's an instant connection.

The architecture is beautiful.