Naples Part 3: Herculaneum

After 'climbing' Vesuvius in the morning, Robert decided to escape from the heat and return to our air-conditioned hotel. I, on the other hand, got off the train midway between Pompei and Naples centre to visit Herculaneum. Herculaneum was a rather well off port town which, like Pompeii, was buried by the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. As it was a bit down wind of the eruption, the story of Herculaneum's demise is a bit different form that of Pompeii. In Pompeii, there was a massive fall of ash, causing many of the roofs to collapse. This, along with toxic gas was the main cause of death. Herculaneum escaped most of the ash fall, so many of the roofs survived. It was, nevertheless, buried under 20m of ash, mud and lava. It was discovered 10 years earlier than Pompeii, in 1738 (though some sources claim that it was earlier). However, it was never as famous as Pompeii because it didn't have the spectacular body casts. If fact, very few bodies skeletons were actually found at the site until recently, when about 200 were discovered huddled near what would have been the beach. Clearly they were waiting for boats to rescue them which were not able to land. It is smack in the middle of a suburb, you can see the apartment buildings that were eventually built on top of the volcanic debris.

The photo above gives you a better idea of how deep Herculaneum was buried.
As does this one. What you can see here is, to the right, the tourist ramp to walk down to the site. On the right, you can see what would have been near the edge of the sea. Obviously, the lava flow changed all of that and so now Herculaneum is inland.
Herculaneum is smaller than Pompeii and better preserved. Here I am inside one of the buildings. The object at the end of the room is a water font. The room is lit using natural light (a hole in the roof).
Herculaneum has some rather spectacular mosaic work. The white thing you can see blocking the shot is rope used to keep tourists off the mosaics.

Herculaneum also has some lovely mosaic work on the walls.
Like Pompeii, it also has frescos. This is one of Neptune.

This gives you an overview of the main part of the site. You can see the modern buildings above the site.
Here is another view.

In this picture, you can see some of the same wall construction we had in Pompeii. Note the window grill, which managed to survive.

The final photo, I am sad to say, is of grafitti inside one of the buildings. Grafiitti is an Italian word, so they must have invented it, but still, it is quite shocking that people are so egotistical that they feel a need to deface a historic monument (particularly one with such a tragic history) with their scratches. This bring to mind a comment that is attributed to Ghandi. When asked what he thought of 'western civilization', he responded that he thought that it would be a good idea.