We returned to Misenum But the area around Vesuvius was now a wasteland, and Herculaneum and Pompeii lay entombed beneath a congealing layer of volcanic material.
The two towns remained largely undisturbed, lost to history, through the rise of Byzantium, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A French prince digging in the vicinity of his villa on Mount Vesuvius had discovered the antiquities nearly 30 years earlier, but had never conducted a systematic excavation. So Charles dispatched teams of laborers and engineers equipped with tools and blasting powder to the site of the original dig to hunt more treasures for his queen.
For months, they tunneled through 60 feet of rock-hard lava, unearthing painted columns, sculptures of Roman figures draped in togas, the bronze torso of a horse—and a flight of stairs.
Digging began in Pompeii ten years later. Workers burrowed far more easily through the softer deposits of pumice and ash, unearthing streets, villas, frescoes, mosaics and the remains of the dead. Inside stone archways that framed the entrance to a series of boat houses, skeletons huddle, frozen for eternity in positions they had assumed at the moment of their deaths.
Some sit propped against stones, others lie flat on their backs. Children nestle between adults; a few loners sit by themselves. Instead, they were overcome by a 1,degree Fahrenheit avalanche of gas, mud and lava, which burned the flesh off their bones, then buried them.
Packard, an heir to the Hewlett-Packard fortune , in partnership with the British School at Rome, and the Superintendency for the Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii, the government body that administers the site. The project began to take shape one evening in , when Packard who declined to be interviewed for this article considered ideas for a new philanthropic endeavor with his friend and renowned classics scholar Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, then director of the British School at Rome.
Hadrill recommended Herculaneum. Roofs were collapsing. It was a disaster. Herculaneum, of course, faced cronyism and financial shortages that Pompeii has today. But Packard staffers took advantage of private money to hire new specialists. The ancient city sits some 60 feet below the modern city of Herculaneum, and rain and groundwater tends to collect in pools, weakening foundations and destroying mosaics and frescoes.
The project hired engineers to resurrect the Roman-era sewage system—tunnels burrowed three to six feet beneath the ancient city—two-thirds of which had already been exposed by Maiuri. They also installed temporary networks of aboveground and underground drainpipes. Pesaresi ushers me through a tunnel chiseled through the lava at the entrance to the ruins.
Our conversation is nearly drowned out by a torrent of water being pumped from beneath Herculaneum into the Bay of Naples. We stroll down the Decumanus Maximus, a street where public access has long been quite limited, because of the danger of falling stones and collapsing roofs. After millions of dollars of work, the facades are secure and the houses are dry; the street fully opened in Workers have painstakingly restored several two-story stone houses, piecing together original lintels of carbonized wood—sealed for 2, years in their oxygen-less tomb—along with terra-cotta-and-wood roofs, richly frescoed walls, mosaic floors, beamed ceilings and soaring atriums.
Pesaresi leads me into the Casa del Bel Cortile, a recently renovated, two-story home with an open skylight, a mosaic-tiled floor and a restored roof protecting delicate murals of winged deities posed against fluted columns. Unlike Pompeii, this villa, as well as numerous others in Herculaneum, conveys a sense of completeness. For some years, the Getty Institute has experimented with laser techniques to restore frescoes, employing a noninvasive approach that strips away wax but leaves paint untouched.
Now the Getty team has applied that technique at Herculaneum. It was Maggi who uncovered the victims of Vesuvius, along with their belongings, including amulets, torches and money.
A soldier wore a belt and a sword in its sheath, and carried a bag filled with chisels, hammers and two gold coins. Pompeii is a must! You deserve it! Book the best! Great history needs a great teller for adults and kids. I know you are looking for a great time to share with your dearests. For as long as you are with us- we will be sure to take care of you. Looking forward to meeting you in Pompeii — Gaetano Manfredi. Book now. Animals Wild Cities Morocco has 3 million stray dogs. Meet the people trying to help.
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