The beach of Herculano in the ancient Roman city of Herculano, buried together with Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on October 24, 79 AD, will be excavated and restored. When the archaeologists are finished, visitors will be able to stroll along the beach of Herculano, as the elite Romans did, before the lethal wave of nature destroyed the region.
Herculano Beach: created and destroyed by a volcano
As today, but perhaps even more so in the ancient world, people were attached to their ancestral territories. For thousands of years, people cultivated on the hyperfertile slopes of Mount Vesuvius and no one in the Roman world predicted that their natural life sustainer, Vesuvius, was also a destructive god who would take everything back.
In his 2013 BBC2 documentary The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum Wallace-Hadrill told the story of the disaster in 79 AD and said that we all made “the mistake” of seeing ancient Roman society as a two-part entity: rich people or poor people. However, the presenter said: “Herculano gives us the middlemen – and they are extraordinary”.
Impressive paintings found in Herculano attest to its reputation as a luxury Roman seaside retreat. ( milosk50 / Adobe Stock)
A poorly preserved website becomes a case of excellent textbook
Herculano was an old coastal settlement that today is located within the commune of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. According to Strabo’s Geography the city had ancient Greek origins and has always been associated with the hero Hercules (Hercules), who was worshiped not only as the spiritual founder of the city, but also as the supreme lord of Mount Vesuvius.
Like the neighboring city of Pompeii, Herculaneum was also destroyed and buried under thick black volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It was also well preserved under deep layers of ash.
According The New York Times in 2013, “Herculano went from one of the most preserved UNESCO sites at risk of being placed on the endangered list to becoming a classic case of successful archaeological conservation.”
Now, a new stage of planned archaeological excavations is about to begin, with the aim of restoring Herculano beach in the Antica-Spiaggia area.
Boat houses on the beach of Herculano, where 300 skeletons were found. These unfortunate victims were about to be evacuated, but they never made it out. (Matthias Holländer / Public domain )
Herculano’s beach was basically a luxury retreat by the sea
While Pompeii and Herculaneum were both covered with pyroclastic material from the volcanic explosion, the director of the Herculaneum archeological park, Francesco Sirano, said that more artifacts and organic wooden items were preserved in the latter.
This fact was exemplified in an article in The telegraph who said that the charred remains of almost “300 people were discovered in a series of boat houses in which the last inhabitants died in the intense heat waiting to be rescued from the sea.”
The Herculaneum Society they say the city was smaller, but much richer than Pompeii. And while Pompeii was a prosperous and highly industrialized city, Herculaneus served the powerful Roman elite “as a luxurious haven by the sea”, comprising large and luxurious marble-clad houses.
Sirano told the Italian news agency ANSA that the Herculaneum Conservation Project ( HCP) started in 2001. But now, the team of archaeologists has a renewed awareness of the complexity of the site that he “expects new and solid insights”.
Skeletons of victims in Herculaneum who died from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. ( Waldorf 27 / Adobe Stock)
Challenges of the Herculaneus Restoration Project
The ANSA report says that the planned excavations are expected to take two and a half years. Archaeologists intend to reach the level on the west side of the beach, which they will bring back to their original level of sand, just as it was at the time of the eruption in 79 AD.
Finally, future site visitors will be able to relive those last moments in October 79 AD, when the gods redefined Roman society and punished them for their wealth and decadence.
However, as the target beach is buried about four meters below the current sea level, this project will be different from any previous excavation in Herculano. Excavators say they expect to face a series of unforeseen problems with the runoff. But the expected obstacles are not restricted to the dangers of heavy archeology and the displacement of hundreds of tons of sand. The entire restoration project must also comply with modern water regulations.
Top image: looking south from Naples along the coast to the waterfront of Herculano, which is now being restored Source: Sergii Figurnyi / Adobe Stock
By Ashley Cowie