Herculaneum

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Herculaneum (modern Italian Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town of the Italian region of Campania. It is today most famous for having been preserved, along with Pompeii, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius beginning on August 24, A.D. 79 that destroyed the towns, burying them in ash that has hardened into volcanic tufa. A pyroclastic flow preceded the main eruption, killing many residents, whose bodies were encased in ash that preserved their last moments in casts. In contrast to Pompeii, Herculaneum was a smaller town with a wealthier population at the time of its destruction.

Excavation began at modern Ercolano, a suburb of Naples, in 1738. The elaborate publication of Le Antichità di Ercolano ("The Antiquities of Herculaneum") under the patronage of the King of the Two Sicilies had an effect on incipient European Neoclassicism out of all proportion to its limited circulation; in the later 18th century, motifs from Herculaneum began to appear on stylish furnishings from decorative wall-paintings and tripod tables to perfume burners and teacups.

Fresco in the 'college of the Augustans', depicting the myth of Hercules, the cult dedicated to the imperial household.

The first major discovery of 1st century A.D. Roman skeletal materials took place in Herculaneum. Because the Romans generally practised cremation into the 3rd century, very little skeletal material remains for study. Excavation during the 1990s in the port area of Herculaneum turned up the skeletons of more than 200 individuals of varied age, sex, and class.

The well-preserved paintings and mosaics in Herculaneum.

The most famous of the luxurious villas at Herculaneum is the 'Villa of the Papyri' now identified as the magnificent seafront retreat for Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Julius Caesar's father-in-law. It stretches down towards the sea in four terraces, one of which is expected to house a second part of the library. Piso, a literate man who patronized poets and philosophers, built there one of the finest libraries of its time. Scrolls from the villa are stored at the National Library, Naples. The scrolls are so badly carbonized, soaked with volcanic mud and flattened by pressure, that only a few have been unrolled. Multi-spectral imaging, using different portions of the light spectrum helps make the ink legible.

External links

• The Philodemus Project will publish Philodemus works on poetry and on rhetoric.
• Teams from Brigham Young University work to make carbonized scroll fragments readable.

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