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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.
Everyone fantasizes about accidentally uncovering a treasure. Pompeii and Herculaneum were such treasures. They existed for a thousand years until, in one brief moment, they disappeared. Here’s the story of how they were lost… and found.
(Image credit: Flickr users Simon & Vicki)
VESUVIUS BLOWS
Two thousand years ago, the prosperous cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near Rome, 10 miles from the foot of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. Vesuvius hadn’t exploded for over 1,000 years; no one even knew it was a volcano. Then on August 24 in the year 79 A.D., it erupted, completely burying both cities under mountains of ash-Pompeii and Herculaneum were lost.
Mount Vesuvius continued to erupt sporadically over the centuries that followed, each time adding to the volcanic debris that covered the former town sites; each layer leaving the two cities more hidden than before. Four hundred years later, the Roman Empire collapsed, and legends about the two cities went with it. For 15 centuries, they lay forgotten and undisturbed, their stories untold. Then clues about their existence began to turn up. For example, around 1594, a Roman architect named Domenico Fontana was digging a canal to supply water to a rich man’s home when workmen uncovered pieces of ruined buildings and a few ancient coins. But nothing much came of the discovery.
RUMORS OF TREASURE
(Image credit: Flickr user Bill McIntyre)
In 1707 part of Italy came under Austrian rule, and Prince d’Elboeuf came to command the cavalry. He heard rumors of treasures being brought up from underground, so he promptly purchased a large parcel of land in the immediate vicinity. Over the next 30 year, he had shafts and tunnels dug and uncovered vases, statues, and even a number of polished marble slabs-once the floor of the theater in Herculaneum-all of which he used to decorate his villa.
Word of the prince’s finds spread, and other treasure hunters came looking. When the first skeleton-complete with bronze and silver coins-was unearthed in 1748, treasure fever hit hard. For the next several years, artifacts were continually looted from the area. But it wasn’t until 1763, when workers unearthed an inscription reading “res publica Pompeianorum“-meaning “the commonwealth of Pompeians”-that the ancient city was identified.
Photo: Mike Hettwer
Alan Taylor of the Big Picture Blog over at Boston Globe has a(nother) neat post – this time of fantastic photos of Mike Hettwer of a dinosaur fossil excavation in the Sahara Desert:
About 9,000 years ago, a very wet climate prevailed in parts of the Sahara Desert called the Neolithic Subpluvial period. Lasting several thousand years, this Green Sahara was home to many grassland and woodland animals as well as humans. While on an expedition for dinosaur fossils with paleontologist Paul Sereno in Niger in 2000, Hettwer discovered a burial area containing hundreds of skeletons from two distinct cultures, each thousands of years old – the Kiffian and Tenerian. Also found in the dry and desolate site were hunting tools, pottery, and bones of large land animals and fish.
Link | Many more excellent photos at Mike’s website: Link
