Talk:Herculaneum

Cleanup

I marked this for a cleanup because the images surrounding 'skeletal remains' cover up some of the text making it unreadable, and I'm not sure how to fix it. --Lord Pheasant 06:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Myth?

The sub-section Myth recounts a familiar episode in the western wanderings of Hercules, but applies it, as a founding myth, to Herculaneum. That Herculaneum is named to honor Hercules is patent, but isn't this "founding myth" an unwarranted invention?--Wetman 20:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Herculaneum is also the name of a town in the state of Missouri, USA

It is about 30 miles south of St. Louis off of Interstate 55.

And ironicly they have problems with lead there too.

Distance from sea

Herculanuem used to be a seaside holiday town for patricians, how far is it from the sea today? It is also on a lower level than modern buildings around it.

Nat Geo photo of skeleton

Isn't this a copy-righted pic from Nat geo? I think it was on the cover of the May 1984 National Geographic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SGW999 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Skletal remains

I won't even go into capitalization inconsistencies, but this section needs revamped. The references are done wrong, and "for example" should not be seen in an encyclopedia article. Sleepsong (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

herculaneum is full of interesting stuff! =D — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.165.161.101 (talk) 12:36, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Merger with Pompeii main article?

This entire article should be merged with Pompeii. It's irrelevant that this town was *technically* distinct. In the same way that news reports of things in Scarborough are classified as "Toronto", so should this article be considered "Pompeii". And the photo of the ring lady is a quintessentially "Pompeii" shot; that's in every Pompeii history book I've read.

No one ever heard of Herculaneum, and it's absurd to make a distinction.

The above comment is interesting because in point of fact the suburb of Scarborough does have a separate entry from Toronto in Wikipedia. And anyone who is reasonably well informed has heard of Herculaneum. (I agree that practically no one outside Canada has ever heard of the suburb of Toronto called Scarborough.) Campolongo (talk) 14:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

herculaneum

Herculaneum (in modern Italian Ercolano) is the ruins of an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in 79 AD, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano, Italy. Its ruins can be found at the co-ordinates 40°48′21″N 14°20′51″E, in the Italian region of Campania in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius.

It is most famous for having been lost, along with Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius beginning on August 24, 79 AD, which buried them in superheated pyroclastic material that has solidified into volcanic tuff. It also became famous as the source of the first Roman skeletal and physical remains available for study that were located by science, for the Romans almost universally burned their dead. Since the discovery of bones in 1981, some 150 skeletons have been found, most along the sea shore — the town itself, being effectively evacuated. Herculaneum was a smaller town with a wealthier population than Pompeii at the time of their destruction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.82.120 (talk) 14:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Date of the AD 79 eruption

Article in English: G.Rolandi et al. The 79 AD eruption of Somma: The relationship between the date of the eruption and the southeast tephra dispersion. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 169 (2007). From its Abstract:

... New high level wind data collected at the weather stations of the Aereonautica Militare data centres at Pratica di Mare (Rome) and Brindisi have been compiled to characterize the prevailing wind condition in the Somma-Vesuvius region. The common north-easterly dispersal directions of the Plinian eruptions are consistent with the distribution of ash by high-altitude winds from October to June. In contrast, the south-easterly trend of the AD 79 products appears to be anomalous, because the eruption is conventionally believed to have occurred on the 24th of August, when its southeast dispersive trend falls in a transitional period from the Summer to Autumnal wind regimes. In fact, the AD 79 tephra dispersive direction towards the southeast is not in agreement with the June–August high-altitude wind directions that are toward the west. This poses serious doubt about the date of the eruption and the mismatch raises the hypothesis that the eruption occurred in the Autumnal climatic period, when high-altitude winds were also blowing towards the southeast. New archaeological findings presented in this study definitively place the date of eruption in the Autumn, in good agreement with the prevailing high-altitude wind directions above Somma-Vesuvius.

--Q Valda (talk) 15:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think they have somewhat recently adjusted the date of the eruption based in part on the direction of the wind as its not normal for August it better suits October which is the revised month of the eruption. You are dead on but it's still only slowly trickling out to common knowledge Kootenayboy (talk) 03:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Set up

The picture of the 'ring lady' was actually a set up by the photographer. While the skeleton's position is obviously real, the ring on its finger and the bangles near by were put in there on purpose (I seem to remember it maybe being done by National Geographic?). This is fairly obvious; a pyroclastic surge would melt metal such as that near instantly. If I get round to finding an article about the setup, I'll source it in. 60.242.210.126 (talk) 23:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

That sounds highly unlikely. The present photograph is actually taken by the excavating team and shows work in progress of the actual excavation, it would be quite extraordinary if the dig would have been tampered with in such a manner.

Also the article pyroclastic surge states that such a surge "...may be as hot as 800 °C (1500 °F)" (and that is the maximum temperature, most would be cooler) while the article on gold states that the melting point of gold is "1064.18 °C, 1947.52 °F". So gold would not have melted "near instantly". --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

While it does seem unlikely that a shot would be set up, one should not forget that a pyroclastic surge travels at over 100m/s; a degree of turbulence that would with such extreme heat perhaps not 'melt' gold, but certainly disfigure it to a degree far greater than the photographs would suggest. I vaguely remember my University lecturer arguing that this (or maybe a similar photo?) was set up. If I can find out any information, I'll add it...though it probably won't affect the article that much. Trollyboy (talk) 12:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Please present the information here before adding anything. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

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Still burried?

It's said about 3/4 of the city is still burried under 20 meters of volcanic debris, Does that mean intact homes like open rooms or would they be also filled with debris the roof having collapsed?

Picturing some dungeon and dragons style labyrinth minus tunnels connecting them. Kootenayboy (talk) 03:18, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

It’s all full up until it’s “dug” out. The edge of the dig site has awesome archways which are still filled with the rock like tuff. However much of the expiration before the big dig is digging tunnels, so there is some dragon style labyrinth action. 174.194.142.112 (talk) 12:24, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Missing information

I miss everything about modern use / tourism / impact / modern infrastructure and which parts can be seen publicly. Also, there is the picture description "1631 "lava" flow" which is not at all mentioned in the text! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.69.69.20 (talk) 13:12, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Style cleanup, "Herculaneum versus Pompeii" and onward

Whoever initially wrote this section absolutely had it in for Johann Winkelmann, and the whole section was a mess of run-on sentences and inverted clauses. I've done some cleanup to make it more neutral, but there's still a lot of work to be done. NinaEdits (talk) 03:34, 2 December 2022 (UTC)