The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum


The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum

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'I'm Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

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'and, the past 30 years,

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'I've had the immense good fortune to be able to study remains

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'from two of the most famous and exciting archaeological areas

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'in the world.

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'The first is Pompeii.'

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Pompeii is a magical site.

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It's captured everyone's imagination for two and a half centuries.

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'The modern exploration of Pompeii started in 1748.'

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Now, nearly 2.5 million visitors come here every year.

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No wonder. It boasts the oldest amphitheatre in the ancient world.

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An ancient brothel.

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And these world-famous casts.

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Yet, just ten miles down the road,

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is a place destroyed by the same eruption

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that, for me, is, if anything, even more fascinating.

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It adds colour and close-up detail

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to what life was really like

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in Roman times.

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This is the city of Hercules -

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Herculaneum.

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Here we have the Main Street

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and here you can see the way that houses are built to two storeys.

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The top storey surviving unlike Pompeii.

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And there are the wooden shutters.

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We've discovered their furniture.

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It's a sort of ancient IKEA.

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And, even more important for a historian like me,

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wooden tablets containing the records

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of their legal disputes and squabbles.

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What they ate

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and even how they ate it.

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HE CHUCKLES

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And, most important of all,

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Herculaneum holds the largest sample of skeletons

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of a living population from anywhere in the ancient world.

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Amongst them are the first new human remains

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to be found in this area for 30 years.

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They provide detailed scientific evidence

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of how people lived in the years leading up to the eruption.

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And put all this stuff together,

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and you can just stretch out

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and touch the lives of an ancient population.

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In 79 AD, this volcano erupted.

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It was a disaster that would resonate

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from the ancient to the modern world.

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Here, in the crater of Mount Vesuvius,

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I find it hard to imagine

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why anyone would want to live in such a dangerous and scary place.

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2,000 years ago,

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Vesuvius looked very different.

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Even the summit was covered in green.

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And the inhabitants of the Roman towns below had no idea

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of the dangers they faced.

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The most famous of these is, of course, Pompeii.

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Pompeii has become world-renowned

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for its casts of the volcano's victims.

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It was a brilliant discovery in 1863,

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when the Italian archaeologists developed a technique

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of making casts of the dead bodies.

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Because of the way the ash set around the body

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before it rotted away,

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it was possible to inject plaster of Paris

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and capture the precise form of someone in their death throes.

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And even details of their clothing.

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This caused international sensation

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and it's become something of a ghoulish spectacle.

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What's lost in this process is the skeleton itself.

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Because scientists can say so much from a skeleton about a person,

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it's frustrating we can no longer get at these people.

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The preservation of Pompeii's people as casts was made possible

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by the layer of ash and pumice ejected from Mount Vesuvius,

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which buried the town.

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In Pompeii, it fell three to five metres deep.

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By contrast, ten miles along the Bay of Naples at Herculaneum,

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the ashfall was much hotter

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and up to five times deeper.

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As it cooled, it formed rock,

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which enveloped the town

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and proved an archaeological godsend.

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This terrifying precipice is the product

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of just 24 hours of volcanic eruption.

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Herculaneum is covered in as many as 25 metres of solid rock.

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And it's the enormous depth

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that means Herculaneum is exceptionally well-preserved.

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Ancient Herculaneum was a port on the Bay of Naples.

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But the effect of the eruption

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has pushed the coast 400 metres out to sea.

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And there's something here

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that helps us get closer to the people of an ancient town

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more than any other place in the world.

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A vast sample of skeletons found not in a graveyard,

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but cut off, young and old, at the same moment.

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They're just as poignant as the casts,

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but they also give us something more important -

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in their bones is the blueprint of what they ate,

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how they lived

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and even the kind of work they did

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in the years leading up to the eruption.

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It was down here, by the ancient shore,

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that over 300 skeletons were found.

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Some of them out on the shore, but the majority under these vaults,

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clustered, up to 40 in each vault.

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The question is,

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what were they doing down here?

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The vast majority found under the vaults were women and children,

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while those found on the ancient beach were largely men.

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It was a strange separation.

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Stacked high in boxes in this storeroom are 104 samples

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of the 340 skeletons recovered.

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Amongst them are the first new skeleton remains

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to be recovered from this area in 30 years.

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Leading the investigation are anthropologists Dr Luca Bondioli

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and Dr Luciano Fattore.

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The Herculaneum group, is it special,

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-is it normal among the groups you've worked with?

-It's unique.

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It's not special, it's unique.

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There is no other collection all over the world

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that is so important and so unique,

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because it's not people coming from a graveyard or a necropolis.

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Those were alive people who died from a disaster.

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-And this is unique.

-Uh-huh.

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So you a have fantastic snapshot,

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-a frozen moment of a real population.

-Exactly.

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To correspond not perfectly, but it's a good sample,

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because we estimate that this is close to 10% of the population

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that was in Herculaneum.

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Most remarkable of all is this find -

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three exceptionally well-preserved skeletons

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discovered in a niche at the back of one of the vaults by Dr Fattore.

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This small group comprises two women, probably in their 40s,

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and a small child.

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Because these particular skeletons were hidden and so well-preserved,

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we can tell exactly what possessions they had with them.

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Incredibly, grape seeds were found in this child's ribcage.

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The remains of her last meal.

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And these tiny silver earrings

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were lying encrusted with ash

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on either side of her skull.

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The skeletons were a hugely important find.

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Using them, and all Herculaneum's other exceptionally well-preserved remains,

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I'm going to take you on a special tour of this extraordinary town.

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I'll show you how it adds even more to what we know from Pompeii.

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First, let's see where they ate,

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where they shopped and where they lived.

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Not just the people in swanky mansions,

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but in ordinary flats and bedsits too.

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Let's take this house, the house of the wooden screen,

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as an example of what you can see in Herculaneum

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which you don't see in Pompeii.

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In the middle here, the impluvium,

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where the rainwater comes in from the hole in the ceiling.

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There's a nice marble table on the axis which draws people's eyes in

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to the most important reception room in the house - the tablinum.

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But, as we come up here, HERE, here's the difference.

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This is what you don't find in Pompeii.

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This is a wooden screen found in position,

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it's preserved now in glass to protect it.

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A screen which could be drawn across

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to cut off this main reception room

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and if you come in, you can see how it changes it.

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Open it up and here I am, every visitor to the house can see me,

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I'm... It's easy for me to welcome visitors.

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I close it up, and then, it's become a private dining room.

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So that wooden screen is all about privacy in their own house,

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something you can see here because the wood survives.

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Suppose we were in Pompeii,

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here's a room which you would guess was a bedroom.

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You would guess it, but you wouldn't know for certain.

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But when you actually find the bed in it...

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Ha! Then, you know it's a bedroom.

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It may look a bit worse for wear,

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but in Herculaneum they found enough wooden furniture

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to fill an entire showroom.

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Luigi, mi puo aprire la porta?

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Possiamo vedere un po?

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'The man in charge of all this is Luigi Sirano.'

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This place is a real treasure trove.

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There's, there's something of everything you want for your house.

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It's a sort of ancient IKEA.

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Do you fancy a bed?

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Here is an entire ancient bed.

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You can see the frame,

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but also this very beautiful woodwork of the sides of the bed.

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What else do we have here?

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We have benches, linen chests.

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And here's a really famous object - the cradle.

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Found in a house with the baby lying in the cradle.

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'And a really big question for the Roman family was,

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'what gods do you worship

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'and where do you put them?'

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Oh, yes, over here, we have a household shrine.

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These doors are like the doors into a temple

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and inside, you keep your household gods.

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And that's a lovely insight into religion in the Roman household.

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I think I'd better put some gloves on here

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since I'm going to be handling household gods,

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I'd better treat them with respect.

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Now, what we've have got here is just a selection

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of the sort of gods you'd find in one these shrines.

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Here is the must-have God.

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This is a Lar, the dancing spirit of the hearth and household.

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You can see a little drinking horn that he's holding up.

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Many people, because we're in Herculaneum,

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wanted a Hercules and there's Hercules.

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You see his lion skin hanging from his hand and his beautiful six-pack

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and fine muscular body.

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And, of course, going with Hercules,

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Venus, and there is the naked Venus washing her hair.

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Even more than strength and sex, you need money.

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And Mercury is the great God of how to make a profit

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and there he is with a bag of money.

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He has little wings on his helmet.

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With any luck, he has wings on his heels too.

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And here we have the king of the gods,

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Jupiter himself, with his thunderbolt, that's a thunderbolt.

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I love the way his eyes seem to blaze at you.

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He is a scary God.

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And take good note -

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the king of the gods does not have a big prick,

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because, in antiquity, they did not think a big prick was a good thing.

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It's a sign of a barbarian.

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And here's an absolutely weird link with the modern world.

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A Madonna and Child.

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This splendid figure of a Goddess

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giving suckle to a baby.

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Of course, it's not the Madonna,

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this is not the Christ child.

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This is just an ancient scene.

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And that's a splendid large copy

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and here's another little copy

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which we found when we were excavating down in the sewers.

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And here, at the Sanctuary Of The Madonna, in Pompeii,

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we can see it's an image that's passed effortlessly

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from the ancient world to the modern.

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What's been missing in ancient Pompeii is its bright colour.

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We tend to see so much in black and white.

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Herculaneum though offers a whole new palette.

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Here's a find I'm particularly proud of because we made it

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in the course of our conservation project.

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And it's very important... You see, isn't she fantastic?

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And what's so fabulous about her is the colour.

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The moment the conservators realised that the head was there,

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still completely caked in ash,

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they said, "Please, no-one else touch it.

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"There may be traces of colour."

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And, by golly, there were traces of colour.

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They were so careful about removing the ash.

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Look round the eye -

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eyebrow,

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eyelashes

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and the iris and the pupil.

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It's extraordinary how a few touches of colour

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just bring this piece of marble to life.

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There's been a lot of talk about,

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did they really colour ancient statues?

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Because people think marble looks beautiful just as it is.

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And this shows you

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that just a few delicate strokes can make all the difference

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between a dead, white marble statue

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and this living image.

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And it wasn't just on marble that the colours survived.

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ALARM BEEPING

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The contents of these containers are so delicate

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they're kept constantly alarmed and refrigerated.

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They contain the timber from the only surviving wooden roof

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from the Roman world, found here, in Herculaneum.

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When they were unearthed, the paint still survived.

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Remnants of those bright colours still exist.

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You can see traces of the blue and turquoise pigment.

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They tell of brightly coloured

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and intricately patterned wooden ceilings.

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Chemical analysis has enabled us to reconstruct them in all their glory.

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Nowhere is this world of colour and detail preserved better

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than in the House Of Neptune And Amphitrite.

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Silvia and her team have spent eight months conserving this mosaic.

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The ancient artists who made the piece

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and the modern restorers here share a painstaking attention to detail.

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As Silvia brushed delicately away at the yellow pigment,

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she was astonished at what she found.

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The most important details were picked out with real gold.

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Yet, we know this house was pretty modest by Herculaneum standards.

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In the front of the house, there's a shop, a sort of ancient off-licence.

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And here it is,

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the remains of dozens of shops survived from antiquity,

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but Herculaneum offers a level of preservation

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we just don't see anywhere else, even in Pompeii.

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Particularly, its preserved wood.

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Look at what we've got here.

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We've got a screen that cuts off a little backroom for the shop.

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Up here, there's a little balcony,

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with amphorae, wine containers stored up on it.

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And then round here, here's this wonderful thing,

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a sort of wine rack.

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So you can put your wine amphorae there and you can probably

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tip them over and pour out a smaller container for sale to the customer.

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Not only that, but you've got an upper floor, a flat above the shop.

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You see over there, there's a rather nice decorated wall

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and in the corner, there's a bed. You can see its bronze leg.

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Years of studying Herculaneum with its humble shops backed up against

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opulent houses taught me that this

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place was the best surviving example of how a Roman town really worked.

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A place not of black and white contrasts between rich

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and poor, but a complex tapestry where people of different

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wealth and backgrounds were woven into an intricate mix.

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And it's Herculaneum's latrines, from ancient shops,

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apartments and small businesses,

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that have given the most tantalising window onto the lives of its people.

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And the contents are all down below, so to speak.

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What makes this block of houses

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so fascinating is not just the enormous amount of sewage

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found down in the sewer, which allows us

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to analyse in detail their diet, but that it's found in a social context.

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You can see it's a series of shops and perfectly ordinary flats.

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We're looking at the diet not of people at the top

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of the social spectrum, but way down.

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The contents of the sewer are being analysed.

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And what Herculaneum is giving us

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is a completely new insight into what less well-off Romans ate.

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It was once thought they survived on a simple diet of bread and olives.

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But just like everything else in Herculaneum,

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the reality is turning out to be much more rich

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and surprising than anyone could have expected.

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I've been working on the organic material from the Herculaneum

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sewer for almost ten years.

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I've been involved right from the beginning.

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I was fortunate enough not to have to excavate it.

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It's pretty cool because it's exactly what people were eating.

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It's probably as close as you can get.

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There's just a huge range, in terms of shellfish, fish,

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also fruits and vegetables.

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We've already found over 110 different food items in the sewer.

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Everything from bones to seeds to eggshells has been preserved.

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Some of it chucked down the drain into the sewer below.

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But no sewer would be complete without some of these.

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Here is a human coprolite, looking, I suppose,

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somewhat like a modern turd, a modern motion.

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And this is a broken section through one of the coprolites

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and the darker brown material is fish bones.

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What I'm doing here is carefully scraping away at the coprolite,

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trying to reveal a fish vertebrae.

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See the bone there

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and then the general mineralised material of the coprolite itself.

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We know the people who lived around the Bay of Naples loved their fish.

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They recorded the different species in this stunning mosaic.

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Modern Ercolano is still a fishing port with a thriving market.

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And I thought I'd see whether there's anything

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they ate before the eruption that's still popular today.

0:24:190:24:23

Fish merchant Signora Lucia has graciously offered to help.

0:24:260:24:30

There are 46 different species of fish in the sewer.

0:24:370:24:41

We found many different types of sea breams.

0:24:410:24:45

Anchovies, sardines...

0:24:510:24:53

A lovely wriggling eel!

0:24:530:24:55

Put it back!

0:24:550:24:57

Three different types of eels.

0:24:570:25:00

There's also a little bit of evidence for seabass,

0:25:000:25:03

as well as what we would think of as more unusual species,

0:25:030:25:06

such as sharks and rays.

0:25:060:25:08

It's clear that from the harvest of the Mediterranean, the poorer

0:25:120:25:15

people of Herculaneum were not only enjoying a diet rich in protein,

0:25:150:25:19

but one more varied than that of the inhabitants today.

0:25:190:25:24

Back at the lab,

0:25:240:25:26

they've even managed to uncover how these people ate their fish

0:25:260:25:30

from a rarely surviving part of its anatomy, the otolith.

0:25:300:25:35

Otoliths are located in the ear of the fish, so in the head.

0:25:350:25:39

The otoliths show signs of digestion,

0:25:390:25:42

so smoothing around the edges,

0:25:420:25:44

which means that they were probably consumed,

0:25:440:25:47

passed through the human digestive tract intact, but since they're in the head of the fish,

0:25:470:25:51

this means that people ate their fish whole a lot of the time.

0:25:510:25:55

The Romans liked their fish crunchy!

0:25:550:25:57

This tradition must surely have died out with the eruption.

0:26:000:26:04

OK.

0:26:100:26:11

When you look at fish,

0:26:200:26:22

there's very little difference between what was there

0:26:220:26:25

in the Mediterranean Antiquity and what you find on a fish stall now.

0:26:250:26:28

Fruit and veg is a very different thing.

0:26:280:26:31

Some is just the same as in Antiquity. Apples?

0:26:310:26:35

Now, that's a good Ancient Roman apple, so to speak.

0:26:350:26:39

Pears, also. The Romans were very fond of pears.

0:26:390:26:42

But what about oranges?

0:26:420:26:44

Oranges come probably from the Arab world in the Middle Ages.

0:26:440:26:49

So oranges and lemons...

0:26:490:26:52

Lemons, the joy of the Bay of Naples, don't exist in Antiquity.

0:26:520:26:57

There's one fruit, however,

0:26:590:27:01

that's sustained its popularity in Ercolano for nearly 2,000 years.

0:27:010:27:05

O, signora, posso comprare i fichi? Si. O, grazie, grazie, signora.

0:27:070:27:13

I'm so pleased with what I've just found here.

0:27:130:27:17

This is Herculaneum figs.

0:27:170:27:18

Herculaneum and Antiquity, famous for figs.

0:27:180:27:21

And here we have the real figs of modern Herculaneum.

0:27:210:27:25

Beautifully cooked.

0:27:260:27:28

Mmm!

0:27:280:27:30

Thank you.

0:27:370:27:39

Signora, posso offrire? No.

0:27:390:27:41

The food uncovered in the sewer can still be found in today's

0:27:440:27:47

market in Ercolano.

0:27:470:27:50

It tells us about the surprising range of nutrition in this

0:27:500:27:54

ancient town.

0:27:540:27:57

And now our skeletons are providing even more evidence.

0:27:570:28:02

A scientific method called collagen testing,

0:28:020:28:05

which determines the origin of protein in the bones,

0:28:050:28:08

is being used for the first time to tell us who ate what here.

0:28:080:28:13

The traditional view is that only the rich could afford meat

0:28:130:28:17

and fish in the Ancient World.

0:28:170:28:19

So we might expect a small minority of our skeletons who've

0:28:190:28:24

enjoyed this diet while the rest ate only vegetable matter.

0:28:240:28:28

Rather than this division, what Luca found was more surprising.

0:28:290:28:34

In Herculaneum we have found a uniform distribution through

0:28:350:28:40

all the possible kind of diets.

0:28:400:28:42

From vegetarians to meat. Here we have one adult male.

0:28:420:28:48

Here we have a young lady, should be around 20 years old.

0:28:480:28:52

She was almost vegetarian.

0:28:520:28:55

She ate almost no meat, while this adult male ate,

0:28:550:29:01

we can estimate, close to 60% of his protein intake from seafood.

0:29:010:29:08

So does that mean we've got really two different groups of the

0:29:080:29:12

population, the lucky ones who have plenty of fish,

0:29:120:29:16

-and the unlucky ones who just have a vegetarian diet?

-No, no.

0:29:160:29:19

He could have been the cook of the master.

0:29:190:29:22

And he was the person who bought the food in the market.

0:29:220:29:26

So we don't know.

0:29:260:29:27

And she maybe was the daughter of the master and for some religious

0:29:270:29:32

or any other kind of thing, she prefer not to eat meat.

0:29:320:29:36

So it's difficult.

0:29:360:29:38

They were very complex. It was a complex society.

0:29:380:29:41

Back in the lab, it's not just the food that Erica

0:29:420:29:45

and Mark have uncovered, but even the way it was prepared.

0:29:450:29:50

Until recently,

0:29:500:29:52

some assumed poor people didn't prepare their own food at home here.

0:29:520:29:56

However, microscopic analysis has now revealed

0:29:560:30:01

nine different undigested herbs and spices,

0:30:010:30:04

including celery seeds, coriander and fennel.

0:30:040:30:09

It seems that like their modern Italian counterparts,

0:30:090:30:13

even the poorer people of Herculaneum practised

0:30:130:30:16

a sophisticated level of cookery.

0:30:160:30:20

And what's more,

0:30:200:30:21

their tastes stretched far beyond the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

0:30:210:30:25

The black pepper's by far the most exotic food item, as it would have come all the way from India

0:30:280:30:33

and I found two peppercorns at different

0:30:330:30:36

locations in the sewer, which means that two different sets of

0:30:360:30:39

people in different apartments would have been able to buy black pepper.

0:30:390:30:44

It would be another one and a half millennia before the poor

0:30:450:30:48

in Britain could afford the same taste.

0:30:480:30:52

They clearly also cared a lot about food and flavour

0:30:520:30:55

and what they were eating.

0:30:550:30:57

The people in Herculaneum were definitely living to eat,

0:30:570:31:01

not just eating to live.

0:31:010:31:03

The analysis of the material from the sewer tells us

0:31:050:31:08

the diet of Herculaneum's people was rich and varied.

0:31:080:31:13

The fact that a sewer was built here at all tells us

0:31:130:31:17

something else about this place.

0:31:170:31:19

Some people imagine that a Roman town was a filthy, unhealthy

0:31:280:31:32

place, rather like a medieval city, or even Victorian London.

0:31:320:31:36

But the Romans had an obsession with hygiene.

0:31:360:31:40

Their doctors said - you need to bathe regularly.

0:31:400:31:43

And a town like Herculaneum has an abundant provision of public baths.

0:31:430:31:48

Here, we're in the suburban baths. This is the cold dip.

0:31:480:31:53

You can see that the water would come right up here.

0:31:530:31:58

And you can get, what, a dozen, even more people here at the same time.

0:31:580:32:03

And if you're worried that the water's going to get a bit

0:32:030:32:05

dirty with all those people, never fear.

0:32:050:32:09

Here's the plughole, to let it out. They can change the water regularly.

0:32:090:32:14

We can't be sure if the entire population of Herculaneum was

0:32:140:32:18

allowed to use the baths,

0:32:180:32:20

but what we do know is that everyone had access to a clean water supply.

0:32:200:32:25

Were Roman towns filthy, unhealthy places,

0:32:270:32:30

as some people seem to think?

0:32:300:32:33

Look around you and you see the Romans really care about hygiene.

0:32:340:32:40

Their town is provided with running water, public fountains.

0:32:400:32:45

Look at this one, it's even got this lovely figure of Venus.

0:32:450:32:48

And what's she doing? She's washing her hair.

0:32:480:32:52

Beautiful. She cares about the body, keeping clean.

0:32:520:32:55

And it's not just a public fountain.

0:32:550:32:57

Private houses have running water too.

0:32:570:33:01

Here we've got part of the water distribution system of the town.

0:33:010:33:04

Up on the top, there was a cistern.

0:33:040:33:06

We've got lead pipes running up and that gives the pressure

0:33:060:33:10

so that the water can go into individual houses.

0:33:100:33:13

And there are pipes running right down the pavement, you can

0:33:130:33:16

see three pipes running there, feeding off into individual houses.

0:33:160:33:21

It's estimated that the population of Herculaneum was around 4,000.

0:33:220:33:27

Small, even by Roman standards.

0:33:270:33:29

And no greater than some British villages today.

0:33:290:33:33

And yet, even in the quarter of the town excavated,

0:33:340:33:38

they had three public baths, a primary

0:33:380:33:42

and secondary sewer system, and over 80 latrines.

0:33:420:33:47

They enjoyed a level of public amenities not matched

0:33:470:33:50

until modern times.

0:33:500:33:53

Not only do they provide all these facilities,

0:33:530:33:57

but the magistrates are really keen to keep the place clean.

0:33:570:34:01

And here, they've written up -

0:34:010:34:03

here's the name of Marcus Rufelius Robbia and Orlus Tettius

0:34:030:34:07

and they're given a pretty strict warning here -

0:34:070:34:11

no dumping rubbish by the public fountain.

0:34:110:34:15

And they then specify the punishment.

0:34:150:34:18

If you're a free man, you get fined, and if you're a slave,

0:34:180:34:23

you get flogged.

0:34:230:34:24

And suddenly there opens up in front of us

0:34:240:34:28

that vast gulf between the world of the free and the slave.

0:34:280:34:32

The slave is punished by flogging

0:34:320:34:34

and the flogging is a terrible thing, not just very painful,

0:34:340:34:38

but it leaves a scar, a mark on you for life.

0:34:380:34:42

You can never become a citizen if you've been flogged.

0:34:420:34:45

And it's on this most infamous institution of the Ancient World,

0:34:480:34:52

slavery, that Herculaneum offers the most surprising insight of all.

0:34:520:34:57

This was a town of slaves and their owners.

0:34:590:35:02

The most famous of those slave owners is commemorated right here.

0:35:020:35:07

Marcus Nonius Balbus here was Herculaneum's biggest benefactor.

0:35:130:35:17

He must have made a pile as a governor of a Roman province.

0:35:170:35:21

And then he spent some of his money on his town.

0:35:210:35:24

And the walls up above us were rebuilt by Marcus Nonius Balbus.

0:35:240:35:30

Another sign of his enormous wealth was the sheer number of his slaves.

0:35:300:35:35

When a Roman gave freedom to a slave, the slave took his name.

0:35:350:35:39

And there are over 50 people in Herculaneum who carried

0:35:390:35:42

the name of Marcus Nonius.

0:35:420:35:45

It's a name that continued long after him.

0:35:470:35:50

As this boundary marker between two home-owning ex-slaves shows.

0:35:500:35:54

On this side is Iulia and it's her wall, private in perpetuity.

0:35:570:36:03

And on this side is Marcus Nonius Dama, freed man of Marcus.

0:36:030:36:08

His wall, private in perpetuity.

0:36:080:36:10

And we can tell where he comes from because that name, Dama,

0:36:110:36:15

is distinctive of Syria, as in Damascus.

0:36:150:36:18

So he's come from the other side of the Mediterranean world.

0:36:180:36:22

A tiny town like Herculaneum was attracting immigrants from Syria

0:36:240:36:28

and beyond.

0:36:280:36:31

Often, they came as slaves.

0:36:310:36:33

But what this place and the Roman Empire offered them

0:36:330:36:36

was the chance to buy into something unique in the Ancient World.

0:36:360:36:40

What makes Roman slavery

0:36:410:36:44

so different from any other slave society we know about is the

0:36:440:36:47

way that a slave could be not just freed, but given full citizenship.

0:36:470:36:52

It's this dynamic flow from slavery to citizenship that makes

0:36:540:36:59

Roman society quite unique.

0:36:590:37:01

And there's nowhere better than Herculaneum to see that.

0:37:010:37:06

These marble tablets from Herculaneum are the only

0:37:110:37:15

surviving documents like this from the Roman world.

0:37:150:37:18

They list the freedmen and full citizens of the town.

0:37:180:37:23

What they suggest is that up to 80% of the town's male citizens

0:37:230:37:28

were ex-slaves, pointing to a huge degree of social mobility,

0:37:280:37:34

even in the smallest of Roman towns.

0:37:340:37:36

With over 300 skeletons, surely our anthropologists must have

0:37:390:37:44

evidence to work out the social make up of our group.

0:37:440:37:48

This female seems to bear all the hallmarks of a slave.

0:37:490:37:54

But there's other unique evidence that can shed light

0:39:010:39:06

on the social make-up of the town.

0:39:060:39:09

What's special about Herculaneum is that the records survive that

0:39:090:39:13

show that this was an upwardly mobile society where full

0:39:130:39:17

citizenship was the prize and slaves were battling to secure it.

0:39:170:39:22

This system had a dual purpose - to encourage slaves to work hard

0:39:220:39:27

and then buying into the empire by granting them citizenship.

0:39:270:39:31

Here in the storerooms of the Naples Museum are kept

0:39:400:39:44

one of the most valuable insights into the Roman world.

0:39:440:39:49

They are the wooden tablets on which people recorded their legal affairs.

0:39:490:39:55

Originally, these tablets had a top layer of wax on which

0:39:560:40:01

the legal wranglings of the people of Herculaneum were

0:40:010:40:04

painstakingly transcribed.

0:40:040:40:06

The heat of the eruption melted the wax, but we can still read

0:40:060:40:10

the minute scratch marks made on the carbonised wood below.

0:40:100:40:14

Fortunately, when it came to legal matters,

0:40:140:40:18

the Romans didn't do things by halves.

0:40:180:40:21

Luckily, the Romans were really nervous about forgery.

0:40:220:40:27

So they wouldn't just have one copy of a document,

0:40:270:40:30

they had three copies.

0:40:300:40:33

You can see here some little holes,

0:40:330:40:36

which is the string which ties together the three copies.

0:40:360:40:40

And by looking at these different versions,

0:40:410:40:46

you can puzzle together a fascinating story.

0:40:460:40:49

A wonderful example of these documents

0:40:570:41:01

comes from the House of the Bicentenary and there was found

0:41:010:41:05

a dossier of dozens of documents recording a big legal battle.

0:41:050:41:10

The argument was whether a girl called Petronia Iusta was

0:41:100:41:16

free or a slave.

0:41:160:41:18

And that depended on whether at the time of her birth,

0:41:180:41:21

her mother was free or a slave.

0:41:210:41:24

To resolve the problem, they call in members of the household,

0:41:240:41:29

neighbours, who all give witness and all have contradictory versions.

0:41:290:41:33

We don't know who won, but what it tells us is that in this case,

0:41:350:41:39

it was possible for a slave girl to challenge her status in court.

0:41:390:41:44

Another really important bundle of documents came from a house

0:41:460:41:50

just two doors down from Petronia Iusta.

0:41:500:41:54

It's really difficult just from looking at a Roman house to

0:41:540:41:58

tell what the status of the owner was.

0:41:580:42:00

Look at this house.

0:42:000:42:02

Grand, lovely garden... This is very much a des res.

0:42:020:42:05

Very nice bedrooms in the back round here.

0:42:050:42:08

And then over here we've got a magnificent great reception room.

0:42:080:42:13

You can hear it echoing...echoing... Wonderful!

0:42:130:42:17

And this lovely mosaic on the floor.

0:42:170:42:20

And everything makes you think this must be someone really smart,

0:42:200:42:24

one of the elite of the town.

0:42:240:42:27

As it happens, we know exactly who lived here

0:42:270:42:29

because in a bedroom right up here was a bundle of documents

0:42:290:42:34

and it's this character Venidius Ennychus and he's an ex-slave.

0:42:340:42:39

He's obviously very much a favoured slave

0:42:400:42:43

and he's given his freedom, that was quite common...

0:42:430:42:46

But he's given his freedom underage.

0:42:460:42:49

Terrific. Now I am a free man.

0:42:490:42:51

But that wasn't enough for him

0:42:510:42:53

because he wanted to be a full Roman citizen too.

0:42:530:42:57

And it was really worth it.

0:42:570:42:59

A citizen gets the vote, but he can also inherit property.

0:42:590:43:04

Now, normally, you have to be 30 to become a full Roman citizen,

0:43:040:43:08

if you start as a slave, but there's a special legal loophole

0:43:080:43:12

and Venidius Ennicus uses it.

0:43:120:43:15

If you get legally married and then have a child, declare the child

0:43:150:43:21

before the local magistrate, they can give you a certificate

0:43:210:43:25

that says you now merit Roman citizenship.

0:43:250:43:30

Here we have an example of a bit written in ink

0:43:300:43:33

and though black ink is a little hard to make

0:43:330:43:36

out against charcoal, if I get the light right,

0:43:360:43:39

I can see "L Venidius Ennicus", there's his name.

0:43:390:43:45

And here we can see he's declaring the birth of a daughter

0:43:450:43:49

before the magistrates.

0:43:490:43:51

That a daughter was born to him by his wife Olivia Acte.

0:44:030:44:08

We know he achieved his ambition and made it to full citizenship

0:44:090:44:13

because we can find his name inscribed publicly in marble.

0:44:130:44:18

But it was very important to him to keep the legal proof, just like his

0:44:200:44:25

birth certificate and other personal documents locked away in his house.

0:44:250:44:30

Living here at the foot of a peaceful Mount Vesuvius,

0:44:320:44:36

Venidius Ennicus and Petronia Iusta

0:44:360:44:39

had no idea their world was about to end.

0:44:390:44:43

And the possessions found with the skeletons are a poignant

0:44:510:44:55

reminder of what the people of Herculaneum chose to leave

0:44:550:44:59

and what to take with them when the catastrophe came.

0:44:590:45:02

A dazzling array of coins, gold and jewellery -

0:45:060:45:10

craftsmanship as intricate as the society to which they belonged.

0:45:100:45:15

A surgeon's instruments, perhaps for a doctor to attend to the wounded.

0:45:260:45:31

Who this medic was remains a mystery.

0:45:330:45:36

This skeleton was a mother, found clutching her child.

0:45:380:45:43

And given the choice of what to take with him,

0:45:470:45:50

this two-year-old was discovered with neither treasure nor toys.

0:45:500:45:55

He was found embracing a pet dog.

0:45:550:45:58

And then, the last skeletons to be found, the group of two women

0:46:010:46:05

and the small child with the silver earrings.

0:46:050:46:08

97% of the bodies found in Herculaneum

0:46:580:47:02

were discovered here at the ancient shoreline.

0:47:020:47:05

Unlike Pompeii, where they were spread across the summit.

0:47:050:47:08

There must have been a reason they came here,

0:47:100:47:13

and one that might perhaps tell us how they faced up to disaster.

0:47:130:47:17

Look at the construction of this base.

0:47:190:47:21

Solid Roman concrete with the strongest kind of vaulted roof.

0:47:210:47:27

This sort of space would be ideal for taking refuge in an earthquake.

0:47:270:47:33

And what our research has shown, is that in the years running up

0:47:330:47:37

to the eruption there were constant earthquakes.

0:47:370:47:40

They must have learnt to use these spaces as a place of refuge,

0:47:400:47:44

a sort of bomb shelter.

0:47:440:47:45

Then, as now, Italy is prone to devastating earthquakes.

0:47:470:47:52

One shook Pompeii and Herculaneum in 63 AD.

0:47:520:47:56

Its impact was such that it is recorded in a marble relief.

0:47:570:48:02

You can see the Temple of Jupiter tipping lopsided,

0:48:020:48:05

as it shakes under the force of the ground beneath it.

0:48:050:48:08

In the run-up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,

0:48:100:48:13

this seismic activity increased.

0:48:130:48:16

Its effects are starkly

0:48:160:48:18

apparent on the buildings along Herculaneum's ancient shoreline.

0:48:180:48:22

The people of Herculaneum were used to earthquake activity

0:48:240:48:28

almost continuously for decades before the eruption,

0:48:280:48:31

not just THE big earthquake,

0:48:310:48:34

but a process by which the crust of the Earth popped up and down.

0:48:340:48:39

Over here we can see dramatic evidence of this.

0:48:390:48:42

We have the suburban baths,

0:48:420:48:45

and up there we can see how the windows of the baths

0:48:450:48:48

are half-blocked in,

0:48:480:48:50

right up there, because the sea is crashing against the wall,

0:48:500:48:53

and down here the sand is piling against the bottom of the building.

0:48:530:48:57

The seismic activity caused the sea level to rise

0:49:000:49:03

and fall by as much as five metres - that's 16 feet -

0:49:030:49:08

over a 20 year period.

0:49:080:49:10

Here I'm standing on top of a massive wall,

0:49:100:49:13

built to keep out the sea.

0:49:130:49:14

Originally, the sea was way out there,

0:49:140:49:17

and as it advanced and rose and came in,

0:49:170:49:20

it came smashing against this house.

0:49:200:49:23

This is the House of the Telephus Relief,

0:49:230:49:25

and you can see here that they have had to block in a whole

0:49:250:49:28

series of arches, and down below, we discovered,

0:49:280:49:32

there is an entire level of the house that they have had to

0:49:320:49:36

abandon entirely because of the rising sea.

0:49:360:49:39

They chose to adapt to a perilous environment,

0:49:420:49:45

rather than abandoning their town.

0:49:450:49:47

Why?

0:49:470:49:49

The Roman writer, Seneca,

0:49:490:49:51

advising on the response to the disaster of '63,

0:49:510:49:54

gives us one reason.

0:49:540:49:56

He said, "There was no point fleeing this particular earthquake.

0:49:560:50:01

"Earthquakes could happen anywhere."

0:50:010:50:04

Tragically for the people here,

0:50:040:50:06

Seneca understood neither the geology of earthquakes,

0:50:060:50:10

nor the connection between what was going on under the ground

0:50:100:50:14

and the volcanic potential of Mount Vesuvius.

0:50:140:50:18

And there is another clue as to why people didn't leave.

0:50:180:50:22

Here, in the Naples Museum,

0:50:220:50:24

they're busy packing stuff up to go on exhibition, and we're

0:50:240:50:27

just in time to capture this one, which is a bit of a favourite.

0:50:270:50:31

Favourite because it is a picture of Vesuvius.

0:50:310:50:34

It is over on its side

0:50:340:50:37

but you can just about make out that here is the volcano.

0:50:370:50:41

And by the volcano, is a figure of a god, the god of wine, Bacchus,

0:50:410:50:46

and he is completely clad in grapes.

0:50:460:50:49

That points to the enormous fertility of the slopes of Vesuvius.

0:50:490:50:54

Here, you can even see vines

0:50:540:50:56

growing in rows.

0:50:560:50:57

Another interesting thing about this - Vesuvius has got

0:51:000:51:05

a cone on top.

0:51:050:51:06

It hasn't yet blown its top off.

0:51:060:51:09

And that tells us two things.

0:51:090:51:11

For the Romans, Vesuvius is a safe place, no eruptions,

0:51:110:51:16

and it's an enormously fertile place.

0:51:160:51:19

Why would anyone want to leave it?

0:51:190:51:22

The people were then, and are now, deeply attached to the landscape.

0:51:250:51:31

Signor Ambrosio runs a vineyard on the ash-rich slopes of Vesuvius

0:51:340:51:40

and is very proud of his wine.

0:51:400:51:42

The colour of love.

0:51:440:51:46

The wine is called Lacryma Christi, literally the "Tears Of Christ".

0:51:480:51:53

Its production was thought

0:51:530:51:55

to date back to the 18th century,

0:51:550:51:57

till Signor Ambrosio uncovered

0:51:570:52:00

some extraordinary new evidence in his vineyard.

0:52:000:52:03

Oh, you've made me a happy man!

0:52:030:52:07

A Roman dolium.

0:52:070:52:09

That's what I like to see.

0:52:090:52:11

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

0:52:110:52:13

This is a trace... This is amazing!

0:52:220:52:25

This is ancient Roman wine on the lip here, this is the must

0:52:260:52:31

and actually, if I run my finger there, it's rough.

0:52:310:52:34

And here it's smooth and slightly sticky.

0:52:340:52:38

They have conducted DNA analysis of the must here,

0:52:390:52:43

and it emerges that it is the same as the modern wine.

0:52:430:52:47

And, with his wine, vineyard and land at stake,

0:52:490:52:52

Signor Ambrosio has too much to lose by leaving Mount Vesuvius.

0:52:520:52:57

Just like his Roman forefathers.

0:52:570:52:59

Back in 79 AD, no-one in Herculaneum had any

0:53:040:53:08

idea that it might erupt, let alone

0:53:080:53:11

the scale of the catastrophe that was about to unfold.

0:53:110:53:15

The disaster took many hours to play out, probably more than 12

0:53:250:53:30

hours before the final lethal surge that killed people arrived.

0:53:300:53:35

In the meantime,

0:53:350:53:37

the population must have agonised about how to save themselves.

0:53:370:53:41

Perhaps thinking of what they did in earthquakes in the past,

0:53:410:53:45

many of them came down here to the ancient shore.

0:53:450:53:49

Some were out on the beach, some inside these arches.

0:53:490:53:52

The vast majority found in the arches were women

0:53:550:53:58

or children, whilst those on the beach were nearly all male.

0:53:580:54:03

Perhaps the timescale can explain this strange separation,

0:54:030:54:06

and how these people organised themselves before disaster struck.

0:54:060:54:11

Humans tend to react to crises differently,

0:54:160:54:19

if the crisis is sudden or a very short time, or if the crisis is long.

0:54:190:54:25

And when the crisis is sudden, the strongest survive.

0:54:250:54:31

The males.

0:54:310:54:32

Adult males - young.

0:54:320:54:35

When the crisis is much longer,

0:54:350:54:37

so there is more possibility to organise.

0:54:370:54:40

The reason is protection for the weakest, so children and women.

0:54:400:54:45

It depends how much time you have.

0:54:450:54:46

If this is collapsing now, we rush away.

0:54:460:54:49

If they tell us, "In 15 minutes, this ceiling will collapse,"

0:54:490:54:53

we organise.

0:54:530:54:54

For instance, it happened on the Titanic, where they had hours,

0:54:540:54:58

so at the end more women and children survived than males.

0:54:580:55:05

With Herculaneum you had even more hours,

0:55:050:55:08

and are we seeing special treatment, are we seeing different

0:55:080:55:12

treatment of women and children from males?

0:55:120:55:16

They put the family inside the chamber,

0:55:160:55:19

and the males were looking around, "What do we do, what's going on?"

0:55:190:55:22

But it's rather nice, because you have got the Romans being real gentleman.

0:55:220:55:26

They're saying, "Women and children, please, take refuge from this

0:55:260:55:30

"disaster and we will be brave, we will stay outside."

0:55:300:55:33

The fact that there were

0:55:360:55:38

so many men out on the beach suggests an act of self-sacrifice.

0:55:380:55:42

But by the final phase of eruption, escape was impossible.

0:55:430:55:47

There ash was now falling at a rate of over a metre an hour,

0:55:480:55:52

and would envelop our skeletons,

0:55:520:55:54

capturing their last moments of life.

0:55:540:55:56

A mother, embracing her baby.

0:56:040:56:08

A boy clasping his pet dog.

0:56:080:56:10

And two women cradling a girl with silver earrings.

0:56:120:56:16

The arches offered protection from earthquakes,

0:56:190:56:22

not from the wrath of Mount Vesuvius.

0:56:220:56:25

Nothing could have prepared these people for what happened here.

0:56:270:56:30

The skeletons are more than a grisly reminder of death and disaster.

0:56:320:56:37

Like so much else in Herculaneum, they give us a vivid

0:56:380:56:43

and sharply-focused picture of people's lives.

0:56:430:56:47

And it is a surprising picture.

0:56:470:56:50

From their homes, to what they ate,

0:56:500:56:53

to how they ate it

0:56:530:56:56

and the values they held dear,

0:56:560:56:58

it is tempting to talk about the ordinary Roman,

0:56:580:57:03

but it is difficult to pigeonhole Venidius Ennicus, Petronia Iusta

0:57:030:57:06

or the skeletons from the arches in this way.

0:57:060:57:10

We tend to think of the Roman world as one of brutal contrast

0:57:160:57:19

between rich and poor, master and slave.

0:57:190:57:22

Herculaneum shows us a more complex and a more fluid society.

0:57:220:57:28

It gives us back the people in the middle,

0:57:280:57:31

and far from being what we think of as "ordinary",

0:57:310:57:34

they are quite extraordinary.

0:57:340:57:36

This was a place where slaves could be flogged,

0:57:400:57:44

but also a town where they

0:57:440:57:46

could be freed, earn citizenship,

0:57:460:57:49

own property and gain dignity.

0:57:490:57:51

Where immigrants from across the Empire

0:57:540:57:56

and beyond could strive in a land of opportunity to enjoy

0:57:560:58:02

a quality of life unparalleled for Antiquity,

0:58:020:58:06

and as full citizens,

0:58:060:58:08

make themselves at home in this new Roman world.

0:58:080:58:12

A world that would continue to flourish for another three centuries

0:58:120:58:17

after the destruction of Herculaneum.

0:58:170:58:19

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