What Happened To Herculaneum? | Pompeii: Out Of Time With Tom Hiddleston | National Geographic

Salvete Nat Geo. You've probably heard of Pompeii, the city frozen in ash. But just up the coast was another slightly lesser known town, Herculaneum. Now Herculaneum met the same eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but a slightly different fate. I'm Professor Tom, not technically a professor. That would be lying. But in proper academic fashion and rigor, here are 10 things to know about Herculaneum. Number one, Herculaneum lay just four miles from Mount Vesuvius, much closer than Pompeii. Take a look at this map. It's right here at the base of Vesuvius, an even more imminent danger than Pompeii. The eruption came faster, it burned hotter, but it left the city astonishingly well preserved. Ah yes, Herculaneum. It's more intimate, it's better preserved, but definitely richer. Number two, Herculaneum was smaller, wealthier, and frankly, just that bit nicer than Pompeii. It was a place that rich noblemen and senators would frequent and use the seaside town as a luxurious retreat. The centerpiece has arrived. A holiday spa, if you will. This is the great Roman empire. So what does Rome do? It extracts, and that wealth, where does it go? Primarily it goes to Rome. Right, yeah. But it's also coming into a lot of other cities and towns, like Herculaneum. Right. It's a beneficiary. Number three, while Pompeii was buried in ash, Herculaneum was flash frozen in hot mud and other volcanic debris. The heat reached around 500 degrees Celsius, enough to suffocate life, but preserve the world it left behind. Number four, 60 feet of rock pressed down and locked everything in place. Wood, food, fabric, all the details of a life interrupted in a second. That's the power of the eruption. It's going to radically change the whole geography of the entire Bay of Naples. Wow. Number five, in one villa, an entire library was found. The Villa of the Papyri. The scrolls were burned, yes, but we have discovered many of the words endure thanks to new forensic and AI technology. And this library gives us an incredible insight into Rome's devotion to ideas, that knowledge itself was a luxury worth preserving. Number six, skeletons survived. For centuries, we thought Herculaneum's residents escaped. They escaped by boat, by sea, across the Bay of Naples. And then along the shoreline, over 300 families were found. Sailors, citizens, mothers and sons. Their final moments remind us that history isn't ruins, it's people with a social fabric displaying courage and closeness. Number seven, even wood survived. 2,000 years later, we have beds, doors, even wine racks, which are still intact. Details of ordinary life that even in a catastrophe, they're what make us all human. Oh, and trust the Romans to make sure you've got storage for the wine. He's a member of the Praetorian Guard. It's an honor to have him at our table, I think. Number eight, at least a quarter, just a quarter of Herculaneum has been unearthed. Much of it still sleeps beneath the modern town of Ercolano, with untold stories just waiting for technology to dig a little deeper. Here, you left this. Check this out. A soldier's sword? Soldier's sword. Number nine, modern science is constantly rewriting our understanding of Herculaneum citizens. CT scans, DNA and artificial intelligence are revealing new details about who they were as a people, even what they ate and read. Hang on a second. A spreadsheet is the radical new tech. It sure is. I developed it myself. I think we can be a bit more cinematic. And finally, number 10, Herculaneum remains one of the most complete archaeologically intact Roman towns on earth. Walls still stand, frescoes still glow. There's so much to discover. I do speak a bit of Latin, which it turns out is enough for National Geographic to have handed me a microphone. So scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power. And sometimes, it's how the past speaks again. If this small lecture has left you wanting more, and I do hope it has, you'll find the full story in my new series, now streaming on Disney+. I hope it's rather more dynamic, but the Latin holds up.