With several dozen rooms, the House of the Telephus Relief was 'top-level Roman real estate'. Photograph: Art Archive/Alamy
Posted on 07/27/2012 7:47:28 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
With several dozen rooms, the House of the Telephus Relief was "top-level Roman real estate", said Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP). It was more of a palace or mansion, thought to have been built for Marcus Nonius Balbus, the Roman governor of Crete and part of modern-day Libya, whose ostentatious tomb was found nearby.
The most lavishly decorated part of the immense residence was a three-storey tower. On the top floor was a nine-metre high dining room with a coloured marble floor and walls, a suspended ceiling and a wrap-around terrace...
...the wind changed direction and a 400C pyroclastic surge swept through the town, instantly killing everyone...
From the way in which the pieces lay his team was able to establish that the roof of the House of the Telephus Relief had been swept off by the pyroclastic surge, turned upside down and then smashed on to the beach. The timberwork was embedded in wet sand, which can preserve wood for centuries, and was then smothered with what soon became an air-tight layer of rock -- a freak combination of circumstances that has produced a unique result...
What is more, entire panels from the ceiling, which is thought to have been suspended inside the roof, have survived. Some even bear traces of original paint and gold leaf with which they were decorated... the archaeologists are trying to reconstruct the pattern of the ceiling, which they believe echoed that of the top-floor dining room's dazzling floor, containing 36 different sorts of marble from every corner of the Mediterranean basin...
The other striking thing about it is how closely its design resembles those of the panelled ceilings of Renaissance palazzi , which can be seen all over Italy to this day.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
With several dozen rooms, the House of the Telephus Relief was 'top-level Roman real estate'. Photograph: Art Archive/Alamy
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Volcanoes are a bitch.
I’ll take my chances with earthquakes, tornados, drought and pestilence.
Eh....tile is out. Everyone wants granite.
1%er!!
Bigtime. :’)
If Augustus had lived until 79 AD, and had been there, he’d have said, “I found Herculanaeum a city of brick, and left it as a city of, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The nice thing about the volcano is, it generally has a fixed location, making it easy to avoid.
Herculaneum was buried by a pyroclastic flow. The excavation of the site is more tricky because there’s still pockets and puckers filled with poison gas in the solidified rock. But the site is better preserved in some ways. Most of the best stuff, including home furnishings, has been recovered in Herculaneum. Pompeii was deep in ash, but ancient excavations were done not long after the eruption to recover goods, possibly by the surviving owners, possibly by local ne’er do wells.
In Herculaneum a lot of wood was carbonized in situ, so phenomena like, wooden doors still swing on their original hinges, stuff like that. Due to poison gas, fears of cave-ins, and other problems, most of the site is not open.
Luxurious Villa for sale. Ocean and mounting view. Won’t last long.
Location, location, location.
;’) Unreal estate!
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