Idle Expectations

ancientpeoples:

Hera- Zeus’ Queen

Hera (Juno to the Romans) was one of the 12 great Olympian Gods, sister and wife of Zeus, and the Queen of Heaven. When she and Zeus wed Gaia gave her a gold apple bearing tree in a beautiful western garden, beyond the sunset as a wedding gift.She was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Forget the Disney version of Hera. In myth and literature Hera is most often represented as a capricious and vindictive figure. 

She and Zeus had 3 children together: Ares, the god of war, Eleithyia, goddess of childbirth and Hebe, the goddess of youth. Her fourth child Hephaestus was said to have been born of Hera alone (i.e. he had no father). Hephaestus was born lame, Hera was so humiliated that she threw him from Olmypus. He fell into the sea and was brought up by Thetis and Eurynome. He eventually took revenge on his mother. He sent her a glistening golden throne which invisibly bound her in place a soon as she sat down. He refused to release his mother, despite appeals by the other gods, until Dionysus got him drunk.

Hera was continually jealous of Zeus’ many affairs and often punished his lovers and children with other women. The most famous of which was Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene.

First Hera delayed his birth, then sent snakes to kill him in his cradle. Unfortunately for her, even as a baby Heracles was heroic and strangled the snakes. She continued to afflict him throughout his life. She nurtured the Hydra and Nemean Lion personally to be formidable enemies for the hero and worse of all drove Heracles temporarily insane, in this mad rage Heracles murdered his wife and their children. At the end of his laborious life Heracles became a god, Hera finally made peace with him and gave him her daughter Hebe as his wife.

She tried to deny Leto, pregnant with the twins Artemis and Apollo by Zeus, any place to give birth. Fortunately for Leto she found the floating island of Delos who agreed to let her give birth there. However Hera kept Eileithyia on Olympus. The labour continued for 9 days until the other gods demanded the goddess of childbirth be allowed to deliver the babies.

Io, an Argive priestess of Hera, was seduced by Zeus who then turned her into a cow to hide her from Hera. Hera found out and sent a gadfly to torture the poor girl in cow form and chase her all over the earth. When Io gave birth to her son by Zeus, Epaphus, Hera had him stolen and Io was forced to wander the earth again to look for him. 

As the protector of marriage, Hera had no lovers herself. However several attempts were made on her virtue. Ixion, a mortal tried to rape her. She told Zeus and he fashioned a cloud in the likeness of Hera. He put the cloud in Ixion’s bed and Ixion promptly ravaged the cloud (I have no idea how that is even possible…). Zeus hen punished him by binding him to the spokes of an ever-turning wheel of fire for eternity.

When the judgement of Paris went against her, Hera firmly sided with the Greeks in the Trojan war. In one instance she wishes to distract him from the battlefield and so seduces him. She borrows Aphrodite’s golden girdle which makes Zeus overwhelmingly attracted to her. Zeus tells her “Never before have I wanted anyone so much, not when I love Ixion’s wife, not when I love Danae, not when I loved…” chronicling his many infidelities.  

She blinded Teiresias for siding with Zeus against her in an argument whether a man or a woman experienced the great sexual pleasure. Hera must have been arguing that Zeus was enjoying sex more than her because the answer was that woman experience 10 times more pleasure than a man. Teiresias was asked because he was in the unique position of being a man who turned into a woman for 7 years and then turned back into a man again (how is a very strange story about hitting copulating snakes near Thebes…).

When Side, wife of Orion, claimed that she was as beautiful as the goddess Hera. Hera cast her into Hades. She also took away Echo’s voice other than the ability to repeat what others had said as punishment for helping Zeus’ lover escape by distracting Hera with constant chatter.

There are so many other examples I could include but I think you’ve started to get a real measure of Hera’s character now. She was not a goddess to be trifled with. 

Hera was worshipped throughout the Greek world. Festivals celebrating her marriage to Zeus took place all over Greece. The Argive believed that once a year she descended from Olympus to bathe in their sacred spring, each time she did this they thought her virginity was restored. She was an incredibly important goddess of cult for women. 

The oldest and most important temples in Greece were dedicated to her. The two best known were on the island of Samos (6th century BC and one of the largest temples in Greece) and her Argive temple between Argos and Mycenae. In the Argive Heraion there was a colossal ivory and gold statue of Hera enthroned. 

In art Hera often carries a sceptre and/or wears a crown. She had a proud and regal demenor in her statues, along with being shown as a great beauty. Her bird was the Peacock. She decorated it’s tail with the many eyes of the All seeing Argus, her faithful watchman, after he was killed by Hermes. Another bird associated with her was the cuckoo. It was in the form of a cuckoo that Zeus seduced Hera before their marriage; Hera took the bird and held it to her breast intending it to be her new pet (rather than a future husband).  

Homeric Hymn 12 to Hera:

“I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the Immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and wife of loud-thundering Zeus,—the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympos reverence and honour even as Zeus who delights in thunder.”

Images From:http://www.theoi.com/

ancientpeoples:

Women in Classical Greece

Right, where do we begin with a topic like this? It can encompass so much. I think we should start by looking at the evidence we have for women in ancient Greece.

What the Men say about their Women

It can’t be denied that most of our information about Greek women is written by men! Men who often had their own agenda. This because women often couldn’t read or write, in fact a quote that was copied out by school children in the 4^th Century AD, often attributed to Meander (of the 4^th century BC) says that: “A man who teaches a woman to write should know that he is providing poison to an asp”.

Here are just a few examples of what men have to say about women:

Aristotle (Politics) said that man is by nature superior to the female and so the man should rule and the woman should be ruled.

Hyperides (fr.204) said “A woman who travels outside her house should be old enough that people ask whose mother she is, not whose wife she is” and Pericles is said to have said “A woman’s reputation is highest when men say little about her, whether it be good or evil.” (Thucydides 2.45.2).

One particularly sour Ephesian from the 6^th Century called Hipponax is quoted as saying “There are two days on which a woman is most pleasing—-when someone marries her and when he carries out her dead body.”

Euripides often has the women in his plays make disparaging remarks, such as “I am only a woman, a thing which the world hates” (Euripides Hippolyta), “No cure has been found for a woman’s venom, worse than that of reptiles. We are a curse to man” (Euripides Andromache) and “Men of sense should never let gossiping women visit their wives, for they work mischief.”

Not particularly flattering. I want to give one last example. Demosthenes (Apollodorus against Neaera III.122) said “We keep hetaerae [prostitutes] for the sake of pleasure, female slaves for our daily care and wives to give us legitimate children and to be the guardians of our households.”

Women from the beginning of time (Women in Myth)

Let us take a slight detour now, to the very first “Greek” woman, or rather the first woman the Greeks believed existed. Her name was Pandora, you’ve probably heard of her. Punishment of mankind, unleashed evil upon the Earth…. had a box. Basically she was made to be beautiful on the outside but have the inner attributes that would bring ruin to men.

Many of the vicious and vile monsters of Greek mythology are female: Harpies, the sphinx, the gorgons, the Furies, Scylla, and the Sirens to name but a few.

So all positive so far! Well not really but how much of all this actually reflects real life?

Women: As a Wife

Every father was obliged to arrange an appropriate marriage for his daughter. To do this he had to provide her with a dowry and select a suitable groom.

Often men were in their late twenties or early thirties when they got married for the first time, whereas women were normally fourteen or fifteen. This was probably due to men wishing to have a military career before marriage and starting a family. The age difference would have definitely put the man in charge of the relationship from the start.

So what would the wedding have been like? Well there was no official moment where the couple became man and wife. Instead a wedding could consist of a series of events that happened over a period of time, perhaps even over a very long period of time, and seems to have included a betrothal in front of witnesses, an agreement as to the value of the dowry, the transfer of the dowry to the groom [along with the woman], and perhaps even the birth of the first child.

 But there would be some sort of celebration which allowed friends, family and neighbours the chance to acknowledge the change in relationship and to welcome a man and woman into society as husband and wife. It seems to have taken place as follows: the ceremony seems to have included a sacrifice performed by the bride’s father, the cutting of the bride’s hair, and a ritual bath in sacred water, followed later in the day by the wedding feast where friends and family gathered at the bride’s home to celebrate the union of husband and wife. After sundown the guests processed with much music and singing to the couple’s new home, the bride, groom and the groom’s best friend riding in a chariot drawn by mules or horses. Where modern guests might throw confetti, the Athenians showered the bride and groom with nuts and dried fruit, symbols of fertility and prosperity. At her new home the bride was welcomed by her mother-in-law and escorted to the hearth, the focal point of life in any Greek home.

The existence of a woman’s dowry did give the woman some amount of power and security should her husband die or divorce her. It also encouraged her father to still maintain a vested interest in her and her wellbeing as it was his money that had gone into the marriage.

Were Women Really That Secluded?

All this paints a rather depressing picture of a woman’s life in ancient Greece. Women seem to have been taken into the home to be wives and bear children for the continuation of society, then to be ignored and confined to the back of the house. Only slave girls, prostitutes and the poor women allowed to wander free. How accurate is this picture?

The economic restrictions placed upon women did make them dependent on men for their entire lives. However, what of all the other negative views etc. a small selection of which are shown above? Did that attitude reflect the ancient Greek world?

Domestic life is rarely a topic touched upon in literature, why? Because it was unimportant? Perhaps. Or maybe because it was such an important and personal thing it could not be reduced to paper. Often tombstones of women show a great deal of affection between men and women. Reading deeper into texts it is clear that men and women actually talked in their home about current affairs. Some have argued for the existence of “women’s quarters” within the ancient Greek home however if you look at the plan of Greek houses, particularly more modest dwellings this doesn’t seem likely. 

Also women did leave their houses! They would go and visit each other for all sorts of reasons from gossiping, to helping each other give birth to borrowing spices. Women would go out for social and religious reasons. Perhaps there were some safety concerns in bustling cities and women would have been encouraged to send a slave to go shopping or fetch water, but this is very different to a blanket ban on leaving the house. And those who didn’t own slaves would have had to! The women of poor families would have also had jobs so they could eat and Athenian citizen women are attested as being involved in agriculture, wool-working, midwifery, market workers and wet nurses. I suppose it was more a concern that women outside of the house may converse with other men- for that was considered a sign that a woman was a hetaera [prostitute].

Women in Religion

In Athens a large proportion of the year was devoted to one religious festival or another- even the other Greek states thought that the Athenians were “the most pious” of the Greek people because of this. Some of these would have been minor event involving few people; others would have involved the entire community.

Greek religion was complex, with numerous deities and rituals we can only begin to scratch the surface of. The simplest form of a woman’s involvement in religious festivals was within a chorus, both singing and dancing.

Among the elite of Athens, young girls were chosen to perform various religious roles including as a Kanephoros, who lead public processions carrying a basket, perhaps also as one of the Arrephoria, two girls who performed night time rituals on and below the Acropolis. Several girls would serve at the Arkteia for the goddess Artemis before they reached puberty. They would have travelled to the goddess’ sanctuary and performed many rituals. Here they would have come into contact with other girls of their class and probably make friends whom they would continue to have contact with back home.

There were also festivals like the Thesmophoria which were only open to married women. In honour of the goddess Demeter, women would gather outside of the city and spend three days there fasting, feasting and celebrating away from the world of men.

Finally the sanctuaries of goddesses were normally tended to by priestesses. Some of these positions were particularly highly regarded, like the Priestess of Athena Polias on the Athenian Acropolis. They often had official standing in the community and were given a proportion of the sacrifices. Some even received special seats in the theatre.

Finally there were a few exceptionally sacred positions such as that of the Pythia, the prophetic priestess of Apollo at Delphi.

Hetaerae (Prostitutes)

In Ancient Greece, prostitution was legal and morally accepted. However it occurred at various levels depending on a woman’s age, looks, personality, talent and luck. At the bottom were streetwalkers, who would service their clients for little more the price of one or two loaves of bread, in one of the back alleys of the city.

Brothels would vary in quality. Often, in between clients, women in brothels would spin wool, we know this because in the remains of many brothels we find hundreds of loom weights. Those who worked in the brothels and streets were referred to as pornai, literally whores or harlots.

 These were quite different to the hetaerae, literally courtesan or companions. These could function as mistresses, hostesses and call girls. Very few of these women were slaves; instead they tended to be freedwomen, metics, and even citizen women with no other means to support themselves. They were well educated, articulate and able to hold witty conversations. These women were free from the control of men for a short time. Once their looks ran out many women purchased slave girls or adopted abandoned girls from the streets and trained them up to entertain clients.

Ancient Greek Motherhood

The most important role of women in Ancient Greece was to bear and raise children, the future of the state.

Greek medical theory held that a woman’s flesh, being softer and more sponge-like than a man’s, absorbed extra moisture that had to be expelled through menstruation.  Child-birth was said to cause the smaller vessels to break down and allow an easier flow of blood. Plato tells us in Timaeus that the womb is an animal inside a woman that, if it fails to become pregnant, can wander about the body causing ill health by blocking air passages and restricting respiration. Celibacy was said to be bad for a woman’s health as it dried out the womb and could lead to blocked menstruation, which if left untreated, could be fatal.

 Sterility in a woman was presumed to be caused by some sort of blockage. To test her fertility, they wrapped her in a cloak and burned incense beneath her. If the smell could be detected in her mouth she was fertile, as a woman should be hollow inside. The cure for infertility in a woman involved her sitting in the sunshine all day outside the front of the house while fumigations of myrrh, wormwood, garlic, etc., “softened and opened the mouth of the womb.” It was probably one of the few times she got to relax and do nothing. In a pinch the sanctuary of Asclepius, the god of medicine, allowed people to sleep overnight with the expectation that their dreams would cure them or even help women to conceive.

Childbirth was almost exclusively in the realm of women. Prospective mothers sat on a friend’s lap or on a birthing stool. Drugs were sometimes given to induce labour or speed delivery, and occasionally a woman might be shaken violently as a means of encouraging birth.

Soon after a successful delivery the new mother was expected to visit the shrine of an appropriate goddess, such as Artemis or Eileithyia, to give thanks for her new child. In the absence of  private or state sponsored pensions a son was the only reasonable chance a woman had for a comfortable old age, so any pressure society or family put on her to have a baby was nothing compared to the pressure she would put on herself. Athenian families were not large, but little in life was more important than that first son.

The Women of Ancient Sparta

Alas the picture is never complete; I can’t finish a piece on Greek women without mention of Sparta. In Sparta things were a little different. Most of the evidence above comes from or refers to Athens. Such is the nature of our sources.

In Sparta any sickly babies, male or female, were exposed. Men married in their mid-twenties and would sneak out of their barracks at night to visit their wives. Only once they turned thirty could they sleep at home. Even then it was the state that took importance, not the family.

Spartan women took their role of bearing children very seriously. Furthermore they believed that in order to bear robust and healthy children, they had to be robust and healthy. Girls took part in athletic training and competitions including wrestling, running, javelin and discus. Spartan women married around the age of eighteen and pretty much ruled their homes as their husbands lived in the barracks until they were at least thirty. Another unusual practice in Sparta was that of “wife sharing” sometimes brothers would share a wife in order to prevent a family’s wealth being broken up, with any child being considered a child of all the brothers. Also sometimes men who wanted a child without the trouble of keeping a wife may borrow a wife from one of his friends solely for the purpose of getting a child.

Often Spartan daughters would inherit from their fathers (normally in the form of their dowry); this could even include land. In fact some ancient authors report that women owned around 40% of the land of Sparta. They would raise their sons until the age of 7 and then they would be handed over to the state.

The rest of the Greek world considered Spartan women outspoken and bossy. Their standard article of clothing had a long slit up the side, permitting easier movement for the wearer, but earning them the nickname, “thigh-shower”. Bronze figurines feature Spartan female athletes competing in a tunic that left one breast bare. Plutarch reported that Spartan girls performed nude ritual dances in public and implied that girls and boys competed side by side in the nude. The fact that a Spartan woman could bear one man’s child and still remain married to another, or, even worse, be married to two or more men at the same time was seen by Athenian men as proof that she was shamelessly immoral.

ancientpeoples:

7 Wonders of the World: Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Mausolus was a satrap of the Persian Empire, he married his sister Artemisia II of Caria. He ruled at Halicarnassus for 24 years, expanding his territory to the south-west coast of Antatolia. Though his family originated from Halicarnassus and the  surrounding area, Mausolus admired the Greek way of life, spoke Greek and founded several cities of Greek design.

Mausolus built up Halicarnassus to be his capitol city, magnificent and safe from capture. There was a small canal that could easily be defended from warships, his palace was fortified and several walls and watch towers were built. He also had a Greek style temple built to Ares, the Greek god of war. The whole city was embellished in great works of art and gleaming buildings of marble; Mausolus and Artemisia paid for all this with huge amounts of tax money. On a near by hill, overlooking their great city, Artemisia planned a great tomb for her and her husband.

In 353 BC Mausolus died, leaving Artemisia to rule alone. In his honour she decided to build the greatest tomb she could for him and spared no expense. The tomb for Mausolus became so famous that the term “mausoleum” came about as a general for a tomb above ground.The structure was considered such a unique aesthetic triumph that it was included in the lists of the Seven Wonders of the World. 

Artemisia put a call out for the greatest artists in Greece to come and build the tomb. It was designed by by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene. It stood at nearly 45 meters (148 ft) tall, but it wasn’t it’s size that made it a wonder, it was the high quality statues and sculptural relief that adorned each side. Each side was made by a different Greek sculptor: Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros (who supervised the building of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, another wonder of the world) and Timotheus. 

The Mausoleum was enclosed in a courtyard. The tomb sat on a stone platform, a stairway led up this flanked with stone lions. Along the outer walls of the platform stood many statues of gods and goddesses and on each corner stood a stone warrior on horseback guarding the tomb. The square tomb rose out of the platform covered in bas relief showing action scenes. These included the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths (also depicted on the Parthenon metopes), and the battle of the Greeks against the Amazons, a legendary race of warrior women. 

The top section of the tomb had thirty six columns, ten per side, with each corner sharing two. Standing between each pair of columns stood a statue. Behind the columns was a great, cella-like, block to support the massive weight of the roof. The rook was pyramidal with 24 steps, on top of which stood a final statue group; a quadriga, a four hourse chariot in which stood images of Mausolus and Artemisia. A stone wheel of this chariot has been found, it measure 2 meters in diameter.

Several reconstructions of the whole structure exist however historians today still debate how the tomb would have looked from the scant evidence from the site and descriptions of ancient authors, particularly Pliny the elder. 

Artemisia only lived two years after her husband’s death. Their ashes were placed in the tomb before it was finished. However, according to Pliny the Elder, the craftsmen chose to remain and finish the structure after the deaths of their patron “considering that it was once a memorial of his own fame and of the sculptor’s art.” It was probably destroyed in an earthquake that shook the area between the 12th century (where it was still written about as a wonder) and 1402 when it was recorded as a ruin by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The knights used some of the stones from the ruin to build their castle, Bodrum.

(images from British Museum and http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/halicarnassus/halicarnassus_mausoleum.html)

ancientpeoples:

7 Wonders of the Ancient World

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

 

Let me set the scene, Ancient Ephesus, one of the greatest harbours on the Eastern Aegean, served as a major link on the chief line of communication between the East and Greece and Rome. It was the gateway to the East for the West. Any Roman governor of the Asia province was bound to first land in Ephesus when he entered his office.

Now days, Ephesus lies several miles from the coast, as the gulf that lead to it has silted up, in Turkey.

Ephesus, as well as a great port, was a religious centre in the ancient world. Near the hill of Ayasaluk lies the site of the great Temple of Artemis, or Diana as she was called by the Romans. The temple once stretch c. 2 km above the city centre however, even the very site of it remained hidden for centuries, buried deep beneath the soil of the plain.

The temple of Artemis was built, and rebuilt several times. The remains visible from its excavation are from its 4^th century BC temple. This was built to replace the 6^th century temple, which had had columns built by Croesus, King of Lydia (Herodotus tells us, and pieces of column bearing his name have been found. Its great when ancient literature matches the archaeology). This temple was burned down by a man named Herostratus the night Alexander the Great was born. He was said to have done this in the hope of achieving everlasting fame however the Ephesians issued a decree forbidding the mention of his name for all time. Furthermore, they sold treasure and the columns of the old temple to raise funds for a final, spectacular temple on the site. They made the base of this c. 2.7 m higher than the previous temple in an attempt to prevent flooding. The final temple was eventually ransacked and destroyed by the Goths in 263 AD.

The 4th century BC temple was named as a Wonder of the World, partly due to it sheer size, but also because of its beautiful and lavish decoration both inside and out. It’s more unusual features were the use of sculpted column drums on some columns, each nearly 20 ft. in circumference and 6 ft. high. It attracted thousands of pilgrims in antiquity.

The temple was excavated by Mr. Wood in 1870, however the remains were scanty. This was due to the temple being used as a quarry in later centuries and its stone reused in other buildings. This lack of evidence has lead to much debate over the architecture of this vast structure.

A number of reconstructions of the wonder have been produced, some extremely fanciful, others not so much, based on the archaeology, the written sources, and of course the artists imagination.

Pliny (10.36.95) describes the temple as the largest ever built, made entirely of marble, 425 feet long and 225 feet wide (close to double the size of the Parthenon at Athens), with 127 columns 60 feet high of which 36 were carved with reliefs. He also states that it took 120 years to complete. It was said to reach into the clouds themselves. Some ancients proclaimed it the only temple on Earth to be fit for a god, and as the greatest wonder the sun would ever see, only surpassed by Olympus itself.

Practically, the temple functioned as a bank and as a place of asylum, as well as the focal point of worship and festivals in the goddess’s honour.

The temple was dedicated to the goddess, Artemis Ephesus, a “multi-breasted” and distinct facet of Artemis said to have fallen from the sky. This version of Artemis was equated by the Greeks with the original goddess at the site, an Anatolian earth mother goddess when they took over the site. This Artemis appears on statues and works of art wearing a headdress and veil and with bands of animals around her midriff. Her many “breasts” are sometimes thought by scholars to be adornments or part of the goddesses costume rather than her actual breasts, particularly as most of the time they lack nipples. Theories about the “breasts” are numerous. One scholar recently suggested that they were actually the scrotal sacs of sacrificial bulls, said to “masculinise” the goddess and represent “power” and “virility”.

The primary function of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus was that of a protector and a provider. Inscriptions in the city link her to all walks of life, from health to citizenship and debt collecting. The goddess was a central symbol of the city and its people. She was honoured with a great festival and procession past all of the city’s greatest monuments ending at the Great temple itself. 

ancientpeoples:

Herculaneum 

An ancient Roman town which, like Pompeii, was destroyed and buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Herculaneum was buried under a pyroclastic flow from the eruption and disappeared from history along with Pompeii, and also Stabiae and Oplontis. This was one of the first sights where we could study the skeletal remains of Roman people as normally the dead were cremated. Here the town appears to have been effectively evacuated however it’s citizens did not escape the eruption, their bodies (around 300 individuals) have been found mainly along the sea shore in what would have been boat houses. 

Herculaneum was a smaller town than Pompeii however its inhabitants seem to have been wealthier. It’s name comes from the Greek hero Hercules alluding to the fact that in its early history it was under Greek control. In the 4th century BC this changed and the Samnites took control of the area; and then in 89 BC, after the Social War, it fell to Roman control.

When Vesuvius erupted on the 24th August 79 AD, the town of Herculaneum was buried under c. 20 meters of mud and ash, where it remained hidden for c. 1600 years. It was discovered by accident,  when people were well digging in 1709. At the time of the eruption, Vesuvius had been dormant for nearly 800 years and wasn’t even recognised as a volcano. Based on Pliny the younger’s letters, the eruption began at around 1 pm when Vesuvius began spewing volcanic ash and stone thousands of meters into the air. Pliny described this as like a “stone pine tree”. The wind blew to the southeast, blowing the ash over Pompeii and burying it, Herculaneum lay to the west and so only a few centimetres of ash fell on it. However, the eruptive column then collapsed, sending a pyroclastic surge, a mixture of ash and hot gases at around 100 m/ph. This hit the beach and boathouses at around 1 am, killing all those sheltering there instantly with its intense heat of around 500 degrees centigrade. There is evidence of this heat left in the bones, where skulls have exploded, fractures appeared on long bones and teeth and contractions of the hands and feet- all due to the sheer heat of the flow.

A succession of 6 flows in total buried the town from the bottom up. It did very little damage to the buildings and has preserved the structures, the objects inside them and the town peoples’ remains almost intact. Organic materials were carbonised by the intense heat, and extracted water from them. The peoples’ flesh was vaporised by the heat, so unlike at Pompeii, casts of the bodies could not be made. 

The town included villas, such as the so called House of Argus (named after a painting inside it which is now lost), which had a second floor and also a balcony. It contained the carbonised remains of wooden cupboards and shelving (unfortunately these have been lost since their discovery). There are remains of a bath houses built in the 1st century AD. There was also a college of Augustales, which housed the worship of the imperial cult.

The interior of the college

The most famous of Herculaneum’s luxurious villa is the Villa of the Papyri, possibly a retreat for Julius Caesar’s father in law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (though we can’t say for certain). The villa stretches towards the sea on four terraces. Here the only complete library from antiquity has survived. Some 1800 scrolls of papyrus have been unearthed carbonised by the eruption, however with new technologies we are slowly managing to unrolled the blackened scrolls; and with enhanced multi spectral imaging read them. This process is still being developed but it is hoped that the technique could develop so that unrolled scrolls could be read through the use of powerful x-rays so that the remains themselves are not compromised. This technique could then be applied to other scrolls that remain buried at the villa in unexcavated sections.

Currently excavations are closed, instead money is put into trying to save and preserve those parts of the town that have been uncovered and are rapidly deteriorating. 

It is from Herculaneum that some of the most fantastic ancient paintings have survived. In normal Mediterranean conditions these would have been lost to time however the volcanic ash sealed the town and has meant that we can see a small example of what the Romans and Greeks produce artistically beyond statues and pottery.