We began our morning with a long walk to the tourist office so I could ask about the best way to make various trips later in the week. Then we walked back to the station and caught the train to Herculaneum. It took about 50 or 55 minutes to reach the town of Ercolano on the Circumvesuviana line, which goes on into Naples.
Once in Ercolano, you walk down a steep hill which is the main street, and arrive at the archeological site, and you look down on it from above. Herculaneum was also struck by the same eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, but unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum was completely buried in mud to a depth of 10 metres in places, and disappeared completely from view, and apparently, from memory. It was accidentally discovered in in 1709 by someone who was digging a well, and it was so deep underground that the first excavations were tunnels. A lot of it has never been excavated, as the modern town is built on top of it.
Because it was buried so deep, a great deal of it has been preserved, and some of the buildings are three stories high. We saw wonderful examples of preserved furniture in the exhibition at the British Museum. There are also mosaics and wonderful frescos on the walls - you can probably see the remains of one on the right of my photo.
You enter the site by an underground tunnel, and come out on what was once the ancient sea shore. The arches you can see at the very bottom of the photo were used to house boats or marine equipment.
Unfortunately, at the time of the eruption, people took refuge there. What you can see under the arches are not the remains of boats but the remains of people. Those things you may be able to see that look like stones are in fact bones and skulls; apparently the remains of more than 300 people were found there.
Just above that is a sacred area with temples dedicated to 4 gods, Minerva, Mercury, Neptune and Vulcan. There are 4 plaques, one for each god. My photo shows Vulcan.
Adjacent to this area are the main baths, which are the most compete Roman Baths ever found. Unfortunately, they were closed, which was a great disappointment to me.
We went further on into the streets of the town, which is not really typical of a Roman town. It was a resort rather than a commercial town, so it's mostly streets of villas of the wealthy, with shops and eating places. Below is one of the eating places. I obviously read too many historical novels, because I thought this was called a caupona, but according to our audio guide, a caupona is an Inn. The sort of eating house pictured below seems to be called a Thermopolium - or sometimes, a Taberna.
Anyway, you can see the counter held large jars for the food which was served - the ones at the back were very large indeed. Some of the jars would have held hot food. The shelves you can see on the right at the back were for various drinks. Apparently, most Roman people didn't eat the meal we could call lunch at home, but in this equivalent of a café. There might be tables inside or in the street, or you could take the food away. So things haven't changed much in 2000 years!
The houses and villas tend to be the typical Roman sort, with an atrium to welcome the guests, usually with an impluvium (pool) in the centre to collect rainwater for use in the house.
There was a Tablinum or study for the master of the house, and small bedrooms at the side. At the back would be a garden, and a dining room or Triclinium. Near that you would find a kitchen - often also containing a lavatory!
Many of the houses still have painted walls. The wall painting below is not from a house but from what is referred to as the College of the Augustali. The Augustali were a group of freed slaves who were hoping to rise in society, and interested themselves in public works.
The frescos depict various mythological scenes. The name of the building came from a commemorative plaque on one wall, but apparently this could have also been a Curia, another type of public building.
There were many fine wall paintings in private houses. The one below, however, is a wall mosaic from the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, so named from the characters portrayed on the wall.
You can see how detailed it is, it's still beautifully preserved and some of the mosaic stones sparkle in the light.
At least we were able to visit some well-preserved baths, and, appropriately enough, these are the women's baths.
There is a wonderfully detailed mosaic at the entrance, with shelves for clothes around the room.
The seats and shelves show more clearly in my next photo.
This mosaic is less stunning but still very detailed and you could sit and relax here after bathing. In fact, I did sit and relax here for a while because my back was aching from all the standing about and my feet were swollen from the heat. You can see how the shelves are neatly divided up so people's clothes didn't get mixed up.
It was quite an experience to walk the streets of a 2000 year old town. The roads are still paved as they were originally, and the pavements were quite high, so sometimes I had some difficulty getting up and down. Some of the wider streets had deep gutters running down them, which I had to jump across.
You couldn't go upstairs in any of the houses as they are no longer safe, but you could sometimes see inside the upstairs and you can get quite a clear picture of the appearance of the town.
In my photo above, you can see the modern town above the ruins.
By the time we had spent 4 hours there, I had had enough and so had my feet. So we staggered back to the station to catch the train back to Sorrento and a much needed rest before going out to eat.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
