When Mt. Vesuvius blew it's top in 79 AD, Pompeii got buried under 14' of volcanic ash.
But Pompeii was not the only town to get destroyed.
A day after Pompeii, the seaside resort of Ercolano (Herculaneum) got buried by a wall of lava and mud moving at 50 mph. Geologists estimate the thermoplastic flow measured 950ยบ F and instantly killed everything in its path.
Because of the difference in the ways the Pompeii and Ercolano were destroyed, what archeologists have discovered is different in each town.
The green swath of grass in this photo used to be the Mediterranean shore.
The gray wall is the depth of the lava and mud that buried Ercolano.
To give a sense of scale, on the left hand side of the picture is an arch in the wall. Those little specs in the arch are people.
The lava and mud were so hot, they instantly burned all the oxygen out of the air. Any wood in instantly carbonized.
Wooden items, like this door lintel, turned to charcoal. The lava quickly encased and sealed everything, preventing it from decay. Consequently, much more was preserved than in Pompeii.
Like this fresco....
...or this mosaic (note the white clam shells that border the bottom of the mosaic).
At Ercolano, you get a much better sense of what peoples' homes looked like and how they lived.
Many homes were in multi-story apartment buildings.
Painted plaster covered nearly every wall or column.
Mosaics on the floors, explained what the room was used for.....in this case the women's public bath.
Kitchens in the home were very small.
Only the very prosperous had "Banquet Rooms" in which to eat their meals.
But fast food restaurants that served stews and porridges were on nearly every street corner.
The town gymnasium had been one of the largest buildings in town. Its entrance was amid what must once have been a beautiful colonnade.
