Herculaneum Transfers and Tours

The City of Herculaneum

The urban planning of the ancient city of Herculaneum reveals Greek origins and develops according to the canons of ancient. Its structure is a regular chessboard, like that of the nearby ancient city of Neapolis (Naples), following the typical pattern of Hippodamus of Miletus: many housing lots called islets, bordered by major roads such decumani minor roads that intersect these hinges.
The decumani, parallel to the coast, running north-west to south-east and generally lead to places of trade and in the civil importance, however the hinges are perpendiculars to the coast and down to the sea.
The excavations of the buried city brought to light only part of the urban area that goes from the coast to the decumannus and includes only a dozen blocks, a decumanus maximus, a decumanus inferior three cardines, for a total area of ​​about 4 , 5 hectares.
The ancient city was supposed to have a size of about 20 hectares. In the area of ​​a marina you can see the walls plastered, with narrow doors to hinges that through ramps, leading to the seaside suburb suburban neighborhood.
The walls in some places were incorporated into the mansions that looked out on the headland, were built using large stones of lava rock and pumice Vesuvius. The roads were generally paved with paving stones of volcanic stone, but sometimes it was also used limestone.
On the sides of the roads there was a high-paved sidewalks, at stately homes, was often covered porches. In decumannus the sidewalk, rather wide, was covered for the full length of the street.



The Excavations of Herculaneum

The official identification of Herculaneum dates back to 1709 and it is up to Emanuele d'Elboeuf of Lorraine. This prince, who came to Naples as a result of the Austrian army that had defeated the Spanish, took up residence in Portici and it was going in search of marble for the construction of his palace that he knew that a resin from wells dug in the ground came out marble, statues and more.

So in making the excavations had the good fortune to come across the theater and I get many marble columns and statues. The excavations made by the Prince for about five years were carried out with a lot of irregularities and since the statues appeared in amounts far greater than needed, the prince began to put them on the market. Many exhibits were donated by the same and taken abroad at the first discoveries followed the first raids against of Ercolano.

With the advent of Charles of Bourbon ended the raid and began regular excavations. The excavation is practiced empirically for tunnels and wells up to create a network that measured in length, from north to south, and 600 meters in width from north-east to south-west, 450 meters away. So it was recognized from where he arrived the old shore of the sea, completed the exploration of the theater, was reached one of the public buildings, is tracked down more temples and finally explored the fabulous Villa of the Papyri.

The news of the extraordinary discovery of Herculaneum ran through the whole of Europe, to give publicity to the discovery was especially the famous German archaeologist Winckelmann, its news and its aesthetic considerations influenced the world of letters, directing style and period dress to those forms that he and the discovery of Herculaneum said neo-classical. They began to fall so the shadow of Vesuvius the first travelers, the vanguard of the army that more and more people would invade Herculaneum in later centuries.

Attracted visitors especially the theater and the magnificent Villa of the Papyri, the first considered the most famous and best preserved monument of Herculaneum and the second held a quarry works of art.

The Villa of the Papyri, which was recovered from a fabulous treasure of sculptures and the library of papyri, is a sumptuous villa (it extends for more than 250 meters, parallel to the coast line), as a large imperial residence, for the uncommon literary and artistic taste of the owner, was itself a real art museum and a library of selected writings from a philosopher of rage: the Epicurean Philodemus.

It was the greatest event of humanistic culture of that century, the world was touched and those new discoveries took effect studies of the ancient and the whole vast scientific and cultural movement around art and civilization of the ancient world. The excavations brought to light a city crystallized in time or, better, forever fixed as in an instant camera, the moment in which hummed life. And this exciting, unique novel of archeology has not yet completed: waiting to be unearthed quite a few buildings of exceptional interest.