Road station
Herclanium
Resina · Ercolano
Listen to the story
Herclanium, as the map spells it in the form people actually spoke, is Herculaneum, the seaside town below Vesuvius. In 79 AD it was buried under as much as twenty metres of volcanic material; the first scalding surge preserved even wood, and in the boat sheds on the shore the remains of about three hundred people have been found, who had fled towards the sea. Its villas also yielded carbonised papyrus rolls, the books of an ancient library.