Naples and Herculaneum
- Valerie Fuchs
- Apr 2, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 17, 2022
After almost a week, it was time to leave Rome. We took an early morning bullet train south to Naples, where we checked bags at the train station and headed to the National Archeological Museum of Naples. This museum houses one of the biggest collections of art and artifacts from Herculaneum and Pompeii, which were preserved in time when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
Many of the marble statues and busts we see now were based on original bronze versions, most of which were melted down in the middle ages. However, because Herculaneum and Pompeii were covered in ash and rubble until the 1800s, many bronze statues from 2000+ years ago had been preserved and were found there. There are the ever-present statues of the emperors and rich-and-famous Romans, but there are also plenty of beautiful marbles and bronzes of gods, mythical creatures, and everyday life. These adorned the houses and buildings of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and surely most of Roman civilization at the time.
One of my favorites is the Dancing Faun, a Greek original found in the villa of a probably very wealthy Roman living in Pompeii in the 1st century AD. Archeologists think that Romans of that time placed a high value on the art of the Greeks and Egyptians, and this statue was somewhere around 300 years old at the time it was shown in the villa atrium in Pompeii. The beautiful 3-foot tall bronze faun dances with grace and looks as if it was caught in motion.
The museum also houses many mosaics and frescoes found in the archeological digs. The mosaics are some of the most detailed and intricate I’ve ever seen—essentially painting with stone. They range from portraits to scenes of daily life, from battles to floral and striped patterns. Likewise, the frescoes displayed a wealth of color and detail. And just like we can look at architecture now and estimate by style whether a house is from the 1950s, 70s, or 90s, archeologists have a good guess at the different generational styles of building décor that were found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. They can tell where a house was remodeled and redecorated by comparing the fresco and mosaic styles of the different rooms or buildings.
The museum also holds glass, jewelry, and pottery findings, and when we were there, an exhibit on gladiators. Cal really liked learning about how the gladiators had different fighting styles, signified by their various armor and weaponry. It gave a sense of the “showmanship” as well as the destruction they could wreak as they fought in the “games.”
By midday, we were hot and hungry, so we headed out of the museum and walked down Via Tribunali to find pizza. Naples is supposedly where pizza was born, a simple flatbread with a little cheese or sauce, carried by the dockworkers for lunch. Now, that flatbread is topped with almost anything you want. On a hot day, pizza and a Coke were just what we needed. Then we headed back to the train to catch the Circumvesuviana to Sorrento, with a stop at the Herculaneum Archeological Digs.
Naples is on the north shore of the Bay of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius to the east. The Herculaneum archeological digs sit on the beach just west of the mountain, and Pompeii is south of it. Pompeii got much of the course heavy rubble of the eruption, while Herculaneum was covered with a massive pyroclastic flow—basically a lava flow of hot ash. This explains the differences in the amount of destruction (much more in Pompeii) and preservation (more in Herculaneum).
Herculaneum was fascinating and beautiful. It was a wealthy beach town in its day, with fountains, mosaic floors, frescoed walls, statues, corner stores, temples, bars, houses, storerooms, and shops. Many are still in recognizable condition. We could really see how prosperous merchants lived 2000 years ago. We could also see the dockside storerooms where people hid trying to escape the eruption—their skeletons still lie in place. See the videos and pictures—words don’t do it justice.
At the end of this very long full day, we crashed hard in Sorrento, ready for a day or two of slowing way down.
The Day's Stats
3 trains, 2 museums, 1 bus, and 9 miles walked
The Day's Tips
See Herculaneum—it is worth every minute!
The Day's Favorites
Cal: In particular, I liked seeing the bronze statues at the museum in Naples, especially of Emperor Titus.
Val: I loved seeing the Dancing Faun in person at the Naples Museum, just an incredibly beautiful and delicate statue. Amazing that it was made somewhere around 2300 years ago.
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