DAILY EXCURSIONS: Pompeii and Herculaneum
| Pompeii was a residential town inhabited
especially by wealthy Romans who were known for their lavish spending
on their homes. The fertile, volcanic slopes of Vesuvius
provided a perfect environment for grapes and olive groves.
The volcano had been silent for ages, and people believed it was a mountain. The town had
imposing temples, a beautiful forum, amazing villas, and an ample
theater and stadium.
At lunch time in August 79 AD Vesuvius began
19 hours of horrendous but no less spectacular eruptions.
All the people in the 700-year-old town of 20,000 inhabitants could
have escaped. There was time to flee. Most people fled, but many remained behind trying to save their belongings. Initially there was only a rain of debris, yet finally a cloud of super-heated gas belched from Vesuvius, hitting the town in a matter of minutes.
By the time Vesuvius stopped belching the poisonous gas,
the bustling city of Pompeii was silent, completely
buried by volcanic ash and debris. It remained silent
for 1700 years. Herculanum was first hit by a super-heated cloud which instantly killed all the inhabitants, and it was finally buried under 20 meters of lava.
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| From 30 km (18 miles) west of the
volcano, Pliny the Younger, witnessed the eruption and
later wrote his observations in two letters. This is why volcanologists
use the term "plinian" for the first stage
of devastating volcanic eruptions, in which dust, ashes,
cinders, and rocks erupt high into the air, and in time
hurl back to Earth. Lava does not flow in this stage, lasting also a few days. During the first eight hours of the eruption in 79 AD Pompeii
was covered with debris high 2 to 4 meters (8-10 ft.).
As mentioned, iIn the next stage of the eruption,
a superhot cloud of steam and mud flowed down the side of Vesuvius and covered the towns.
At the speed of 30 mt. per second, it took
four minutes for the boiling gas to hit Herculaneum, 7 kilometers (4
miles) distant. The town was later buried under 23 mts. (75 ft.) of lava. Once a
seaside town of 5,000 inhabitans, it ecame
inland, and is now surrounded by the modern city of Ercolano.
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Silent for thousands of years, Pompeii and Herculaneum are
now living museums of life in the Roman Empire. The sacrifice and horrendous
sufferings of its inhabitants resulted in a generous gesture,
as they donated us the means to understand their architecture
and their culture, thus having an insight of the ancient world
otherwise impossible. Thanks to the sacrifice of the inhabitants,
we know their habits, their customs, even their political
graffiti, or their love messages.
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| Surprisingly sophisticated, Pompeii
had a grid lay-out (right photo). It had a three-stream
running water system. One stream went to public fountains,
another to public baths, and a third traveled to homes
of wealthy residents. People in Pompeii even had a version
of indoor plumbing, but they did not have a good sewer
system.
Flowing through lead pipes from a central water tower
(called the Castellum Aquae), the water delivery system
was ingegnious for its day. When water supplies were
low, the town stopped the flow of water streams in order
of priority. First the wealthy homes were without water,
then the public baths. Public fountains were shut down
last.
People in ancient times used mill wheels to grind flour,
and they stored food in large terra-cotta jars. To maintain
the food at constant temperatures, all but the top of
a jar was buried in the ground.
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Right: Pompeii,
aerial view
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Pompeii: mills and baker's oven
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Pompeii had outdoor food bars where its citizens could
enjoy a snack and a cool drink. Shops were clearly marked
with carved signs: a goat for the dairy, grapes for
the winery, bread for the bakery. In the baker’s
house one could find a fresco of a man selling bread.
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Herculanum: mosaic in villa
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Pompeii: Villa of Venus: painting
of Venus
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A typical upper class residence usually included fresco wall
murals, a fountain, private bath, mosaic floors, an atrium and
inner garden (called a peristyle) and a shrine.
In the 1860s, Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli discovered
that mounds of ash often contained the moulds of those who perished
in the catastrophe. This method of retrieving the shapes of
Vesuvius' victims, now known as the "Fiorelli Method",
has even been extended to recreating the forms of furniture,
doors and shutters on Pompeiian buildings. The casts show the
shapes of the victims in their final moments, trying to filter
the noxious fumes of the eruption, and to breathe, as the terror-filled
faces reveal. The mold of a dog is shown in the right. The poor
animal was chained to a post and struggled for hours before
finally succumbing to the ash.
Daily excursions, prices
INDIVIDUAL TRANSPORT TO POMPEII: You will
be picked up and brought back to the apartment, and the excursion
(including the transport) will last 8 hours.
- for groups up to 3 persons, with a De Luxe Mercedes sedan
the price is 500 Euro.
- for groups up to 6 persons it will cost you 600 Euro and the car will be a Mercedes or Chrysler Van.
- for groups up to 8 persons it will cost you 700 Euro.
The excursions lasts 8 hours, of which four and a half are
for transport (two hours and fifteen minutes each way), and
three and a half for the visit itself. If you want to stay longer, there is an additional supplement after 8 hours, billed by the hour (depending on the car).
The excursion includes the tranport only, it does not include
the entrance tickets (8 Euros or app. 13 US$ per person).
If you require a professional tourist guide, you will find
them at the excavations, and their cost is not included.
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