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Vesuvius buried Herculaneum in a mud bath that became an archaeologist's dream. The insulating muck preserved artifacts that tell of well-heeled, genteel citizens living the good life.
By JERRY HAINES
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 2, 2001
As spa vacations go, it must have been a bummer.
There you were, in your favorite seaside resort, where you had been looking forward to another round of workouts in the gymnasium, pleasant steam baths, sea breezes and long philosophical discussions in the tastefully decorated homes of friends.
But your friends all had disappeared, probably frightened away by the morning's ominous rumblings.
So you decided to leave, too, but -- isn't that always the way? -- there was no one around to give you a ride.
Great, you thought: Everyone forgot about you.
Yes, they did. For about 1,900 years.
That is, if "you" were an elite Roman citizen, circa 79 A.D., whose unfortunate choice of resorts was Herculaneum, south of Naples, on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Just in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.
Herculaneum, the modern visitor discovers, is not just "a little Pompeii." Although both cities were buried by the same volcanic eruption, Pompeii was buried in rock and ash, while the fatal agent in Herculaneum was mud.
Vesuvius produced a hot cloud (technically, "pyroclastic surge") and a hot slurry ("pyroclastic flow") that advanced, faster than the speediest chariot, toward the seashore. In Pompeii roofs collapsed under the weight of the volcanic debris. In Herculaneum, by contrast, hot mud filled the houses from the ground up.
Thus, although my wife, Janice, and I had to use our imaginations to picture what the ancient Pompeii neighborhoods must have looked like, in Herculaneum we saw houses, shops and public baths with their original walls and roofs.
A two-hour tour of Herculaneum serves as a nice warmup for the much larger, but much more damaged, city on the other side of the volcano.
Ettore, our Herculaneum guide, was proud of his city. He loved pointing out, for example, that there are few chariot ruts in the ancient stone streets -- unlike in Pompeii. Herculaneum was an aristocrat's retreat, a place for relaxation, reflection and appreciation of life's bounty. Pompeii was a center for (sniff) tradespeople.
Another detail: Steppingstones weren't needed at Herculaneum intersections, because that city had a subterranean sewage system, allowing pedestrians to cross the street without soiling their feet -- unlike Pompeii.
And Ettore noted that, while the typical resident of Pompeii decorated his home with frescoes of bright, bold color, the refined tastes of Herculaneum demanded more shades and pastels.
Those frescoes are in excellent condition in spite of -- or, perhaps, because of -- being buried in mud for nearly two millenniums. Many statues also were excavated intact, although only copies are on display at the site. (To see the originals one must visit the National Archaeological Museum in nearby Naples.)
The art works manifest a mastery of perspective and shading and an appreciation for human anatomy that would not appear again in Italian art until the early Renaissance.
In addition, the ancient homes show special touches. Some have large atriums, open to the sky, with indoor projections that channeled the rainwater accumulating on the roof into streams that would fall appropriately into collecting pools cut into the floor. (No gutters or downspouts to maintain.) Many buildings were centrally heated, too, through hollow walls. But one may quibble with the common practice of locating the kitchens with the latrines.
The public spas show a mastery of water's behavior: steam and condensation. They had sections identified as the frigidarium (for cold water baths), the tepidarium (for warm ones), the calidarium (for hot ones) and the laconicum (a sauna).
Like so much in the city, the spas were tastefully appointed, with impressive mosaics on the floors and stucco reliefs on the walls. The baths were not just places to get clean; they were for socializing. Women and men bathed in their own separate portions of the building.
Pompeii is infamous for the candid carnality of its bordellos' artwork; Herculaneum offered us nothing quite so scandalous. But in the House of the Deer we saw Drunken Hercules, an irreverent statue of the town's namesake. Apparently, even a superhero child of Zeus occasionally lacks the time to find a restroom if he has had too much vino.
Life was good, at least for some residents. One of the most sumptuous homes we saw is identified as Neptune's and Amphitrite's House, because of the vivid mosaic on one wall. The two are rendered realistically, right down to their navels. (The gods had belly buttons?)
Ettore tells of a crucifix design discovered on the wall of one home. It may be that one of the slaves was a Christian. On the other hand, the more common Christian symbol of the time would have been a fish. Just another mystery of Herculaneum.
The volcanic mud that killed also preserved. Because it sealed off oxygen, many organic items were recovered in the excavations: original wooden balconies, roof beams, shelves and door sills, and a coil of 2,000-year-old rope.
In the House of the Charred Furniture, researchers found most of a table and a sofa. This kind of gives me the shivers: Will our home someday be shown to spectators as the House with the Charred Barcalounger?
And what about the people? They were organic items, too. Before 1982 only a few isolated skeletons had been found in the town -- remarkable, because the population there was 5,000. The fates of most of them seemed lost in time.
But down at the harbor, in vaults once used for boat and tool storage, researchers located hundreds of additional skeletons, some in postures reminiscent of Picasso's Guernica. It is theorized that, seeing they could not escape by sea, these people tried to take refuge in the vaults.
The positions of some of the adult skeletons indicates that they were trying to shield their children. They probably died there, instantly, of asphyxiation or exposure to 750-degree heat. But the panic of those last desperate moments is unimaginable.
The harbor is no longer at the edge of the water. The pyroclastic flow kept on flowing, so that now it is another quarter-mile to the sea. Tons and tons of mud covered the city, hardened into concretelike rock and concealed evidence of the annihilation for centuries. Herculaneum was largely forgotten until 1709, when a peasant happened upon some fragments while digging a well.
The first excavations, begun in the early 18th century, were haphazard and may have damaged more than they uncovered, since often the diggers resorted to explosives to blast through the rock.
Modern excavation has been more careful, but it has been slow. Less than half of old Herculaneum has been uncovered, not only because the removal of the hardened mud is so difficult, but also because the citizens of the modern community atop the thick rocky cover do not want to give up their homes.
After our tour, we saw a bit of today's Herculaneum (Ercolano, in Italian). Aside from a sprinkling of souvenir shops, the town is just one of a series of workaday Neapolitan suburbs, giving little hint of what lies below.
We stayed for lunch at a little family-run restaurant recommended by Ettore, who, rather than give us directions, drove us there. The restaurant is one of those places that enthusiastic travelers brag about discovering -- a place with no menu, where Mama cooks and Papa greets customers, where the homemade wine is put up in unlabeled bottles.
Our entrees were identified as "spaghetti with clams," but that doesn't do them justice. The pasta was homemade, the clams were nickel-size sweet cockles, and they were accompanied by tiny shrimp, miniature crab and lumachine -- snails so small that it nearly required jeweler's tools to extract the delicate meat.
For a while we were the only customers, but then the door opened, and Ettore re-entered, saying he had decided to eat there as well. Thus, at no extra charge, we got an additional hour of his time and his insights into life in Herculaneum, both modern and ancient.
I can't help thinking that our conversation may have resembled some of the discussions that once took place in the old city.
- Jerry Haines lives in Arlington, Va.
GETTING THERE: Herculaneum is an easy trip on the Circumvesuviana train that runs from Naples, through its southern suburbs, to Sorrento. There are two to three trains each hour. Herculaneum in Italian is identified as Ercolano Scavi. It is a short walk from the train station to the excavations (scavi). Fare is about $4, round trip, from either Naples or Sorrento.
Other American tourists told us that the site also is easily reached by car via Autostrada A3.
AT THE SITE: The site is open from 8:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. (until 5 p.m. October through February). Admission is about $6.
You could tour the site without a guide, but the guides can take you into buildings that you might otherwise have to tip a guard to enter. We thought the $75 (for the two of us) that we paid our guide, Ettore, was well spent, as he added insights that were not available in the printed materials. The guided tour lasts about 90 minutes.
It might be possible to tour both Herculaneum and Pompeii in one day, but there is much information to absorb.
EATING THERE: That little restaurant is called Aldo Calcagno and is located at Corso Italia 17 in Ercolano.