REMARKABLE FINDS MADE AT EXCAVATIONS OF HERCULANEUM

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 23 February 1929, Page 12

REMARKABLE FINDS MADE AT EXCAVATIONS OF HERCULANEUM

The excavations at Herculaneum, which were begun in 1927 in the presence of the Kink of Italy, have been proceeding regularly ever since, and now, after 18 months, extraordinary results are recorded (writes the Rome correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). During the early part of December, a quadrivium—a place where four ways meet —has been discovered, with an entire Samnite house, almost intact, and another house, which leads to one long before discovered, and named the Villa Plato. In front of the Samnite house a palestra has been disclosed, together with a part of an l ' apoditerium,” or dressing room, and a "frigigarium,” indicating the presence of baths, which extended beneath the Villa Plato. A characteristic feature of the houses at Herculaneum is that, unlike those at Pompeii, they all have two

storeys below the ground floor. Traces of wooden stairs burnt at the time of the eruption are found. The stairs led to cubuli, or sleeping Chambers, in the upper floors, which are.well preserved and still have fresco decorations. Tno chambers evidently contained wooden bedchambers, which were burnt out, but cinders and carbonised remains are still found. No skeletons have yet been discovered, which seems to prove that the inhabitants probably had time to escape to the sea, and perhaps to save tnemseives in boats. Nearest to the sea a patrician villa has been found, with a spacious atrium, and women’s chambers. These evidently had wooden frames and glazed windows. The house has been called the Villa of the Three Pine Trees. The courtyard is well preserved, with its mosaics and marble floor and cistern for collecting rain water. The street which led to tho sea has been discovered, with remains of patrician houses on each side of it. Among tho furniture, bronze object? ami household articles have been found, as well as statues of Diana and Apollo and allegorical figures with cornucopia, a statue of Silence and another of an African slave, the latter being about three feet high. There are also many vases, cups, earthenware jars, and coloured glass cups, and, finally, a well preserved wooden oil press, five feet high. Nearly all the objects will be loft exactly on the spot where they were found.