EXCAVATING A BURIED CITY

Gisborne Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1372, 6 February 1905, Page 3

EXCAVATING A BURIED CITY

Recently, Professor Waldstein delivered an important lecture at. the ■Royal Academy, London, regarding a projected international enterprise at Herculaneum, it being intended as soon as funds permit to start fresh excavations at this historic spot. On August 24, 79 a. cl., or considerably, more than 1800 years ago, the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried after an eruption of Vesuvius. We know, the details of this appealing disaster from Plinky.’s vivid description, .The cloud, shaped like a pine tree ; the broad sheets of flame, all the more brilliant front the blackness of the night ;• the blazing and empty, villas ;■ the shocks of earthquake ; and the fatal rain of ashes are all familiar to us. Non are we ignorant of the ruined Pompeii* from which we have been able to reconstruct a blur,red picture of .the life of a middle-class commercial town. But Herculaneum. still remains buried and unknown, a wealthy, cultured city, arrested at the highest point of “ its development. That it still- holds the greatest treasures of Greek art and literature there can be little doubt, for the inhabitants of Herculaneum belonged to the great families of Rome. Here the Fabii, the Balbi, the famous Agrippina, and Oucius Calpurnius Piso, the father-in-law of the mighty, Caesar,, had their villas. Wealthy ■and cultivated,, they, collected works of art and gathered together in their libraries .the prioeless masterpieces of Greek and Roman literature. And all that they acquired with care and. intelligence still remains unharmed and untouched. On this point the geologists are agreed. At Pompeii ■there was little of value to find, not merely, because the inhabitants of this town were not connoisseurs, hut because the most of the p;altry documents and indifferent sculpture which existed there were burnt up by hon ashes and pumice stones. But Herculaneum, lying lower than Pompeii, esc apod the hurtling deluge, and was' neither consumed by fire nor covered by lava. It . was merely buried beneath a stream of mud and ashes, which speedily hardened and preserved intact the treasures which the city contained. Beneath this, shelter wood was not burnt, marble was not calcined, glass was not molten ,i and, best of all, papyri were not effaced. And to.make this opinion good we need not rely merely unon the geologists. .The one villa, said to be that of Pisoy which was excavated in 1750-60 yielded a finer collection of works of art in marble and bronze than tho whole of Greece has disclosed, if we except the great masterpieces found at Olympia, Delphi', and Athens. What enterprise, then, could be better worth undertaking than the excavation of Herculaneum ■?■ For once geologists and antiquaries are in perfect agreement. While the men of science assure us that tho villas of Rome’s wealthiest citizens are still intact, the archaeologists have little tiombt as to .what they will fin'd there. Already King Edward has given. Dr. Waldstein’encouragement. The King of Italy not only, permits the site to he excavated, but has shown a keen interest- in the project. France, Germany, Austria, and the United States are all ready to play their part, and nothing is lacking save the money, which is always forthcoming in the cause of science. '