Until 1982 it was assumed that the people of Herculaneum had all got away in time. On 16 January that year, under the vaulted chambers supporting the terrace of the suburban baths, on the ancient shoreline, the first skeletons appeared; in the years that followed more than 300 were recovered, men, women and children packed into the sheds waiting for boats that never came. The eruption of 79 did not bury the town under lapilli, as at Pompeii, but under mud and ash flows that set into hard rock 10 to 25 metres thick. That is why the wood here did not burn away: it charred and stayed where it was, along with the upper floors, the doors and the beds.
What to see
The Roman town covered some twenty hectares and about four have been dug, so half a day covers nearly all of it. The best houses face the sea: the House of the Deer, with its marble group of stags brought down by hounds and an owner identified from the stamp on a carbonised loaf; the House of the Telephus Relief, which belonged to Marcus Nonius Balbus and keeps eight marble oscilla hanging between its columns; the House of the Mosaic Atrium, propped on the old city walls; the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, with the glass-paste mosaic that gives it its name and, next door, the shop where jars of beans and chickpeas were found. In the House of the Wooden Partition the partition is still there, with its panels and bronze fittings.
Of the public buildings there are the Forum Baths, split into men's and women's sections with Triton mosaics on the floors, and the Suburban Baths, among the best preserved in the Roman empire: the calidarium still has the wooden door leaf and the imprint of its marble basin in the hardened mud. The palaestra has a pool with a bronze fountain in the shape of a Hydra; in the College of the Augustales, built between 27 and 14 BC, the caretaker's skeleton was found on his bed. Outside the walls lies the Villa of the Papyri, where in 1750 Karl Weber pulled out 58 bronzes, 21 marbles and more than 1,800 carbonised papyrus rolls; it is still almost entirely buried under twenty-five metres of rock.
Visiting
From Naples take the Circumvesuviana towards Sorrento and get off at Ercolano Scavi; from there it is five hundred metres downhill along Via IV Novembre to the gate. The route starts at the top, on the rim of the excavation, and drops to the level of the ancient street: you grasp at once how much material was removed. The site was found by chance in 1709 by a farmer digging a well, then explored by the Bourbons through tunnels, and finally opened to the sky by Amedeo Maiuri from 1927; it has been on the UNESCO list since 1997 together with Pompeii. Two or three hours are enough, but some houses open in rotation, so ask at the entrance which ones are open that day.
Our editors' tip
At Herculaneum you look up. At Pompeii little survives above ground level; here the charred floor beams held and the upper storeys are still standing, with balconies, windows and original timbers over your head. We walk the length of Cardo V with our heads back, then go down to the chambers on the beach, the point where the eruption stops being archaeology. Go early, before the groups that come over from Pompeii in the afternoon.
