PORT OF POMPEII UNEARTHED

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1893, 30 October 1913, Page 5

PORT OF POMPEII UNEARTHED

TIDAL MARKS CLEAR AFTER 1800 YEARS. After lying hidden since those awful days in the year 79 a.p., when Pompeii was destroyed and buried by a great eruption of Vesuvius, the ancient harbour of the port has just been discovered. So many thousands of British tourists have passed through tho ruins of tho buried city itself that they will easily recognise the position of tho new discovery when it is found that it lies eomo 700 yards along the road outside Porta Marina, and therefore about 1500 yards inland from the seashore of totlay. How it came to be found is an interesting story. The late celebrated Roman sculptor Lorenzo Cozza, who was also noted as a classical scholar, devoted his later years to this search, impressed as he was by the great mercantile importance which ancient writers unanimously attributed to the Pompeian port. On his deathbed, Cozza bequeathed his studies to his son, urging him to follow up the buried road leading seawards from, the old marine gate of the city. Successive borings showed that the sand extended as far as, the sea side of tho present railway track, where ..tho surface soil suddenly slopes up from 10 to 35 feet. A little further inland- the excavators struck the pavement. of an ancient marino street, revealing deep ruts of carriage wheels, such as are familiar to visitors in tho main thoroughfares of Pompeii. Then cement was laid bare, and the ponderous squared stone blocks of the ancient 'quays appeared, some still bearing the tidal watermark. The latest excavations have resulted in walls and wharfs being unearthed. It is proposed to excavate tho entire port, which lies at an average depth of 25 feet below the present surface. First there is a thickness of about ten feet of vegetable soil, then an equal depth of lava from later eruptions, and then comes the undermost strata, five feet in thickness, composed of those small volcanic stones that rained red-hot upon the ill-fated city so many centuries ago. The town of Pompeii, which was founded about 600 8.C., was, about 80 8.C., occupied by the Romans. From that' time it gradually became the seaside resort of the wealthiest and most aristocratic Romans.