Herculaneum

Thanks for all the comments on my last two Blips. This morning we visited Boscoreale where a modest farm house that was buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 has been discovered and excavated, and a small museum has been built adjacent to it. After lunch we went on to Herculaneum, the second of the Roman towns buried in the eruption that has been excavated. Unlike Pompeii, the damage at Herculaneum was largely caused by pyroclastic flows which means that the buildings have remained in a much better state of preservation. It is thought that Herculaneum was about quarter the size of Pompeii and only about a quarter of it has been excavated so it is easy to see most of it in the afternoon, and it is certainly well worth seeing.

This view of the town shows just how deeply it was buried. I am standing on the modern ground level and the arches at the bottom left are old boathouses that were on the ancient beach. The whole area was covered in 65 metres of pumice from the eruption. The boathouses themselves are filled with skeletons of lots of people who sheltered there from the eruption but were killed instantly by the pyroclastic flow.