Herculaneum

Herculaneum was an ancient Roman town on the Bay of Naples, at modern Ercolano, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Covered by deep volcanic deposits, it preserved wooden structures, food and, in the Villa of the Papyri, a library of carbonised scrolls. Excavations from 1738 under Charles of Bourbon made it, with Pompeii, a source of the Neoclassical style, and skeletons found on its shore have revealed much about its inhabitants.