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'I'm Andrew Wallace-Hadrill | 0:00:04 | 0:00:06 | |
'and, the past 30 years, | 0:00:06 | 0:00:08 | |
'I've had the immense good fortune to be able to study remains | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
'from two of the most famous and exciting archaeological areas | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
'in the world. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:17 | |
'The first is Pompeii.' | 0:00:19 | 0:00:20 | |
Pompeii is a magical site. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
It's captured everyone's imagination for two and a half centuries. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:30 | |
'The modern exploration of Pompeii started in 1748.' | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
Now, nearly 2.5 million visitors come here every year. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:41 | |
No wonder. It boasts the oldest amphitheatre in the ancient world. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:46 | |
An ancient brothel. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:47 | |
And these world-famous casts. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
Yet, just ten miles down the road, | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
is a place destroyed by the same eruption | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
that, for me, is, if anything, even more fascinating. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
It adds colour and close-up detail | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
to what life was really like | 0:01:10 | 0:01:11 | |
in Roman times. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:13 | |
This is the city of Hercules - | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
Herculaneum. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
Here we have the Main Street | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
and here you can see the way that houses are built to two storeys. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
The top storey surviving unlike Pompeii. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
And there are the wooden shutters. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
We've discovered their furniture. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
It's a sort of ancient IKEA. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
And, even more important for a historian like me, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
wooden tablets containing the records | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
of their legal disputes and squabbles. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:52 | |
What they ate | 0:01:55 | 0:01:56 | |
and even how they ate it. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
And, most important of all, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:03 | |
Herculaneum holds the largest sample of skeletons | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
of a living population from anywhere in the ancient world. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
Amongst them are the first new human remains | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
to be found in this area for 30 years. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
They provide detailed scientific evidence | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
of how people lived in the years leading up to the eruption. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
And put all this stuff together, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
and you can just stretch out | 0:02:27 | 0:02:28 | |
and touch the lives of an ancient population. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:32 | |
In 79 AD, this volcano erupted. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
It was a disaster that would resonate | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
from the ancient to the modern world. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
Here, in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
I find it hard to imagine | 0:03:21 | 0:03:22 | |
why anyone would want to live in such a dangerous and scary place. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:27 | |
2,000 years ago, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:31 | |
Vesuvius looked very different. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
Even the summit was covered in green. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
And the inhabitants of the Roman towns below had no idea | 0:03:36 | 0:03:40 | |
of the dangers they faced. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:42 | |
The most famous of these is, of course, Pompeii. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
Pompeii has become world-renowned | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
for its casts of the volcano's victims. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
It was a brilliant discovery in 1863, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
when the Italian archaeologists developed a technique | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
of making casts of the dead bodies. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
Because of the way the ash set around the body | 0:04:09 | 0:04:14 | |
before it rotted away, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:15 | |
it was possible to inject plaster of Paris | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
and capture the precise form of someone in their death throes. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
And even details of their clothing. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
This caused international sensation | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
and it's become something of a ghoulish spectacle. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
What's lost in this process is the skeleton itself. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
Because scientists can say so much from a skeleton about a person, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
it's frustrating we can no longer get at these people. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
The preservation of Pompeii's people as casts was made possible | 0:04:48 | 0:04:52 | |
by the layer of ash and pumice ejected from Mount Vesuvius, | 0:04:52 | 0:04:56 | |
which buried the town. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
In Pompeii, it fell three to five metres deep. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
By contrast, ten miles along the Bay of Naples at Herculaneum, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:09 | |
the ashfall was much hotter | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
and up to five times deeper. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
As it cooled, it formed rock, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:17 | |
which enveloped the town | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
and proved an archaeological godsend. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
This terrifying precipice is the product | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
of just 24 hours of volcanic eruption. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
Herculaneum is covered in as many as 25 metres of solid rock. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:39 | |
And it's the enormous depth | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
that means Herculaneum is exceptionally well-preserved. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
Ancient Herculaneum was a port on the Bay of Naples. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
But the effect of the eruption | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
has pushed the coast 400 metres out to sea. | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
And there's something here | 0:06:02 | 0:06:03 | |
that helps us get closer to the people of an ancient town | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
more than any other place in the world. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
A vast sample of skeletons found not in a graveyard, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:15 | |
but cut off, young and old, at the same moment. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:19 | |
They're just as poignant as the casts, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
but they also give us something more important - | 0:06:22 | 0:06:26 | |
in their bones is the blueprint of what they ate, | 0:06:26 | 0:06:30 | |
how they lived | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
and even the kind of work they did | 0:06:32 | 0:06:34 | |
in the years leading up to the eruption. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:36 | |
It was down here, by the ancient shore, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
that over 300 skeletons were found. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
Some of them out on the shore, but the majority under these vaults, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
clustered, up to 40 in each vault. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
The question is, | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
what were they doing down here? | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
The vast majority found under the vaults were women and children, | 0:07:00 | 0:07:05 | |
while those found on the ancient beach were largely men. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
It was a strange separation. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
Stacked high in boxes in this storeroom are 104 samples | 0:07:18 | 0:07:23 | |
of the 340 skeletons recovered. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
Amongst them are the first new skeleton remains | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
to be recovered from this area in 30 years. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
Leading the investigation are anthropologists Dr Luca Bondioli | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
and Dr Luciano Fattore. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
The Herculaneum group, is it special, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
-is it normal among the groups you've worked with? -It's unique. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
It's not special, it's unique. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
There is no other collection all over the world | 0:07:54 | 0:07:56 | |
that is so important and so unique, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:58 | |
because it's not people coming from a graveyard or a necropolis. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:03 | |
Those were alive people who died from a disaster. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:07 | |
-And this is unique. -Uh-huh. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
So you a have fantastic snapshot, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
-a frozen moment of a real population. -Exactly. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
To correspond not perfectly, but it's a good sample, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
because we estimate that this is close to 10% of the population | 0:08:18 | 0:08:24 | |
that was in Herculaneum. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
Most remarkable of all is this find - | 0:08:29 | 0:08:31 | |
three exceptionally well-preserved skeletons | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
discovered in a niche at the back of one of the vaults by Dr Fattore. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:39 | |
This small group comprises two women, probably in their 40s, | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
and a small child. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
Because these particular skeletons were hidden and so well-preserved, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
we can tell exactly what possessions they had with them. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
Incredibly, grape seeds were found in this child's ribcage. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
The remains of her last meal. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
And these tiny silver earrings | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
were lying encrusted with ash | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
on either side of her skull. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
The skeletons were a hugely important find. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
Using them, and all Herculaneum's other exceptionally well-preserved remains, | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
I'm going to take you on a special tour of this extraordinary town. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:51 | |
I'll show you how it adds even more to what we know from Pompeii. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
First, let's see where they ate, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
where they shopped and where they lived. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
Not just the people in swanky mansions, | 0:10:07 | 0:10:09 | |
but in ordinary flats and bedsits too. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
Let's take this house, the house of the wooden screen, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
as an example of what you can see in Herculaneum | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
which you don't see in Pompeii. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
In the middle here, the impluvium, | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
where the rainwater comes in from the hole in the ceiling. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
There's a nice marble table on the axis which draws people's eyes in | 0:10:31 | 0:10:36 | |
to the most important reception room in the house - the tablinum. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:42 | |
But, as we come up here, HERE, here's the difference. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
This is what you don't find in Pompeii. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
This is a wooden screen found in position, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
it's preserved now in glass to protect it. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
A screen which could be drawn across | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
to cut off this main reception room | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
and if you come in, you can see how it changes it. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
Open it up and here I am, every visitor to the house can see me, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:11 | |
I'm... It's easy for me to welcome visitors. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
I close it up, and then, it's become a private dining room. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
So that wooden screen is all about privacy in their own house, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
something you can see here because the wood survives. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
Suppose we were in Pompeii, | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
here's a room which you would guess was a bedroom. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
You would guess it, but you wouldn't know for certain. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:42 | |
But when you actually find the bed in it... | 0:11:42 | 0:11:44 | |
Ha! Then, you know it's a bedroom. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:46 | |
It may look a bit worse for wear, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
but in Herculaneum they found enough wooden furniture | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
to fill an entire showroom. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
Luigi, mi puo aprire la porta? | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
Possiamo vedere un po? | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
'The man in charge of all this is Luigi Sirano.' | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
This place is a real treasure trove. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
There's, there's something of everything you want for your house. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
It's a sort of ancient IKEA. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
Do you fancy a bed? | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
Here is an entire ancient bed. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
You can see the frame, | 0:12:29 | 0:12:30 | |
but also this very beautiful woodwork of the sides of the bed. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:35 | |
What else do we have here? | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
We have benches, linen chests. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
And here's a really famous object - the cradle. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
Found in a house with the baby lying in the cradle. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:51 | |
'And a really big question for the Roman family was, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
'what gods do you worship | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
'and where do you put them?' | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
Oh, yes, over here, we have a household shrine. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:05 | |
These doors are like the doors into a temple | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
and inside, you keep your household gods. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
And that's a lovely insight into religion in the Roman household. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:21 | |
I think I'd better put some gloves on here | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
since I'm going to be handling household gods, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
I'd better treat them with respect. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
Now, what we've have got here is just a selection | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
of the sort of gods you'd find in one these shrines. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
Here is the must-have God. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
This is a Lar, the dancing spirit of the hearth and household. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:46 | |
You can see a little drinking horn that he's holding up. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:51 | |
Many people, because we're in Herculaneum, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
wanted a Hercules and there's Hercules. | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
You see his lion skin hanging from his hand and his beautiful six-pack | 0:13:59 | 0:14:04 | |
and fine muscular body. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
And, of course, going with Hercules, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:12 | |
Venus, and there is the naked Venus washing her hair. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:17 | |
Even more than strength and sex, you need money. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
And Mercury is the great God of how to make a profit | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
and there he is with a bag of money. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
He has little wings on his helmet. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
With any luck, he has wings on his heels too. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
And here we have the king of the gods, | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
Jupiter himself, with his thunderbolt, that's a thunderbolt. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:47 | |
I love the way his eyes seem to blaze at you. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
He is a scary God. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:54 | |
And take good note - | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
the king of the gods does not have a big prick, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
because, in antiquity, they did not think a big prick was a good thing. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:05 | |
It's a sign of a barbarian. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:06 | |
And here's an absolutely weird link with the modern world. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:13 | |
A Madonna and Child. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
This splendid figure of a Goddess | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
giving suckle to a baby. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
Of course, it's not the Madonna, | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
this is not the Christ child. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
This is just an ancient scene. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
And that's a splendid large copy | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
and here's another little copy | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
which we found when we were excavating down in the sewers. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
And here, at the Sanctuary Of The Madonna, in Pompeii, | 0:15:43 | 0:15:47 | |
we can see it's an image that's passed effortlessly | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
from the ancient world to the modern. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
What's been missing in ancient Pompeii is its bright colour. | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
We tend to see so much in black and white. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
Herculaneum though offers a whole new palette. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:07 | |
Here's a find I'm particularly proud of because we made it | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
in the course of our conservation project. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
And it's very important... You see, isn't she fantastic? | 0:16:14 | 0:16:18 | |
And what's so fabulous about her is the colour. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:22 | |
The moment the conservators realised that the head was there, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:27 | |
still completely caked in ash, | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
they said, "Please, no-one else touch it. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
"There may be traces of colour." | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
And, by golly, there were traces of colour. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
They were so careful about removing the ash. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:39 | |
Look round the eye - | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
eyebrow, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:50 | |
eyelashes | 0:16:50 | 0:16:51 | |
and the iris and the pupil. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
It's extraordinary how a few touches of colour | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
just bring this piece of marble to life. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
There's been a lot of talk about, | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
did they really colour ancient statues? | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
Because people think marble looks beautiful just as it is. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
And this shows you | 0:17:14 | 0:17:16 | |
that just a few delicate strokes can make all the difference | 0:17:16 | 0:17:21 | |
between a dead, white marble statue | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
and this living image. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
And it wasn't just on marble that the colours survived. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
ALARM BEEPING | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
The contents of these containers are so delicate | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
they're kept constantly alarmed and refrigerated. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
They contain the timber from the only surviving wooden roof | 0:17:43 | 0:17:47 | |
from the Roman world, found here, in Herculaneum. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
When they were unearthed, the paint still survived. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
Remnants of those bright colours still exist. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
You can see traces of the blue and turquoise pigment. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
They tell of brightly coloured | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
and intricately patterned wooden ceilings. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
Chemical analysis has enabled us to reconstruct them in all their glory. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
Nowhere is this world of colour and detail preserved better | 0:18:45 | 0:18:49 | |
than in the House Of Neptune And Amphitrite. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:51 | |
Silvia and her team have spent eight months conserving this mosaic. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:01 | |
The ancient artists who made the piece | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
and the modern restorers here share a painstaking attention to detail. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:10 | |
As Silvia brushed delicately away at the yellow pigment, | 0:19:10 | 0:19:15 | |
she was astonished at what she found. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
The most important details were picked out with real gold. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:22 | |
Yet, we know this house was pretty modest by Herculaneum standards. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:29 | |
In the front of the house, there's a shop, a sort of ancient off-licence. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:40 | |
And here it is, | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
the remains of dozens of shops survived from antiquity, | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
but Herculaneum offers a level of preservation | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
we just don't see anywhere else, even in Pompeii. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
Particularly, its preserved wood. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
Look at what we've got here. | 0:19:57 | 0:19:59 | |
We've got a screen that cuts off a little backroom for the shop. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
Up here, there's a little balcony, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
with amphorae, wine containers stored up on it. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
And then round here, here's this wonderful thing, | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
a sort of wine rack. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
So you can put your wine amphorae there and you can probably | 0:20:14 | 0:20:18 | |
tip them over and pour out a smaller container for sale to the customer. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:24 | |
Not only that, but you've got an upper floor, a flat above the shop. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:30 | |
You see over there, there's a rather nice decorated wall | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
and in the corner, there's a bed. You can see its bronze leg. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
Years of studying Herculaneum with its humble shops backed up against | 0:20:41 | 0:20:46 | |
opulent houses taught me that this | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
place was the best surviving example of how a Roman town really worked. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:53 | |
A place not of black and white contrasts between rich | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
and poor, but a complex tapestry where people of different | 0:21:01 | 0:21:05 | |
wealth and backgrounds were woven into an intricate mix. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
And it's Herculaneum's latrines, from ancient shops, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
apartments and small businesses, | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
that have given the most tantalising window onto the lives of its people. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:24 | |
And the contents are all down below, so to speak. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
What makes this block of houses | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
so fascinating is not just the enormous amount of sewage | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
found down in the sewer, which allows us | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
to analyse in detail their diet, but that it's found in a social context. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:46 | |
You can see it's a series of shops and perfectly ordinary flats. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:52 | |
We're looking at the diet not of people at the top | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
of the social spectrum, but way down. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
The contents of the sewer are being analysed. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
And what Herculaneum is giving us | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
is a completely new insight into what less well-off Romans ate. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:11 | |
It was once thought they survived on a simple diet of bread and olives. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:16 | |
But just like everything else in Herculaneum, | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
the reality is turning out to be much more rich | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
and surprising than anyone could have expected. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
I've been working on the organic material from the Herculaneum | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
sewer for almost ten years. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
I've been involved right from the beginning. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:39 | |
I was fortunate enough not to have to excavate it. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
It's pretty cool because it's exactly what people were eating. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
It's probably as close as you can get. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
There's just a huge range, in terms of shellfish, fish, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:52 | |
also fruits and vegetables. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
We've already found over 110 different food items in the sewer. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:59 | |
Everything from bones to seeds to eggshells has been preserved. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:05 | |
Some of it chucked down the drain into the sewer below. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
But no sewer would be complete without some of these. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:14 | |
Here is a human coprolite, looking, I suppose, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
somewhat like a modern turd, a modern motion. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:23 | |
And this is a broken section through one of the coprolites | 0:23:23 | 0:23:28 | |
and the darker brown material is fish bones. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
What I'm doing here is carefully scraping away at the coprolite, | 0:23:36 | 0:23:42 | |
trying to reveal a fish vertebrae. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
See the bone there | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
and then the general mineralised material of the coprolite itself. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
We know the people who lived around the Bay of Naples loved their fish. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:03 | |
They recorded the different species in this stunning mosaic. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
Modern Ercolano is still a fishing port with a thriving market. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:16 | |
And I thought I'd see whether there's anything | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
they ate before the eruption that's still popular today. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
Fish merchant Signora Lucia has graciously offered to help. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
There are 46 different species of fish in the sewer. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:41 | |
We found many different types of sea breams. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
Anchovies, sardines... | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
A lovely wriggling eel! | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
Put it back! | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
Three different types of eels. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
There's also a little bit of evidence for seabass, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
as well as what we would think of as more unusual species, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
such as sharks and rays. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
It's clear that from the harvest of the Mediterranean, the poorer | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
people of Herculaneum were not only enjoying a diet rich in protein, | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
but one more varied than that of the inhabitants today. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:24 | |
Back at the lab, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
they've even managed to uncover how these people ate their fish | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
from a rarely surviving part of its anatomy, the otolith. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:35 | |
Otoliths are located in the ear of the fish, so in the head. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:39 | |
The otoliths show signs of digestion, | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
so smoothing around the edges, | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
which means that they were probably consumed, | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
passed through the human digestive tract intact, but since they're in the head of the fish, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
this means that people ate their fish whole a lot of the time. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:55 | |
The Romans liked their fish crunchy! | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
This tradition must surely have died out with the eruption. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:04 | |
OK. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:11 | |
When you look at fish, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
there's very little difference between what was there | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
in the Mediterranean Antiquity and what you find on a fish stall now. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
Fruit and veg is a very different thing. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:31 | |
Some is just the same as in Antiquity. Apples? | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
Now, that's a good Ancient Roman apple, so to speak. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
Pears, also. The Romans were very fond of pears. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
But what about oranges? | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
Oranges come probably from the Arab world in the Middle Ages. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:49 | |
So oranges and lemons... | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
Lemons, the joy of the Bay of Naples, don't exist in Antiquity. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:57 | |
There's one fruit, however, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:01 | |
that's sustained its popularity in Ercolano for nearly 2,000 years. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
O, signora, posso comprare i fichi? Si. O, grazie, grazie, signora. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:13 | |
I'm so pleased with what I've just found here. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
This is Herculaneum figs. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:18 | |
Herculaneum and Antiquity, famous for figs. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
And here we have the real figs of modern Herculaneum. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
Beautifully cooked. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
Mmm! | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
Thank you. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
Signora, posso offrire? No. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
The food uncovered in the sewer can still be found in today's | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
market in Ercolano. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
It tells us about the surprising range of nutrition in this | 0:27:50 | 0:27:54 | |
ancient town. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
And now our skeletons are providing even more evidence. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
A scientific method called collagen testing, | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
which determines the origin of protein in the bones, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
is being used for the first time to tell us who ate what here. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
The traditional view is that only the rich could afford meat | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
and fish in the Ancient World. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
So we might expect a small minority of our skeletons who've | 0:28:19 | 0:28:24 | |
enjoyed this diet while the rest ate only vegetable matter. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
Rather than this division, what Luca found was more surprising. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:34 | |
In Herculaneum we have found a uniform distribution through | 0:28:35 | 0:28:40 | |
all the possible kind of diets. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
From vegetarians to meat. Here we have one adult male. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:48 | |
Here we have a young lady, should be around 20 years old. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:52 | |
She was almost vegetarian. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
She ate almost no meat, while this adult male ate, | 0:28:55 | 0:29:01 | |
we can estimate, close to 60% of his protein intake from seafood. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:08 | |
So does that mean we've got really two different groups of the | 0:29:08 | 0:29:12 | |
population, the lucky ones who have plenty of fish, | 0:29:12 | 0:29:16 | |
-and the unlucky ones who just have a vegetarian diet? -No, no. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
He could have been the cook of the master. | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
And he was the person who bought the food in the market. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:26 | |
So we don't know. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:27 | |
And she maybe was the daughter of the master and for some religious | 0:29:27 | 0:29:32 | |
or any other kind of thing, she prefer not to eat meat. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:36 | |
So it's difficult. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
They were very complex. It was a complex society. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:41 | |
Back in the lab, it's not just the food that Erica | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
and Mark have uncovered, but even the way it was prepared. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:50 | |
Until recently, | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
some assumed poor people didn't prepare their own food at home here. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
However, microscopic analysis has now revealed | 0:29:56 | 0:30:01 | |
nine different undigested herbs and spices, | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
including celery seeds, coriander and fennel. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:09 | |
It seems that like their modern Italian counterparts, | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
even the poorer people of Herculaneum practised | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
a sophisticated level of cookery. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:20 | |
And what's more, | 0:30:20 | 0:30:21 | |
their tastes stretched far beyond the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
The black pepper's by far the most exotic food item, as it would have come all the way from India | 0:30:28 | 0:30:33 | |
and I found two peppercorns at different | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
locations in the sewer, which means that two different sets of | 0:30:36 | 0:30:39 | |
people in different apartments would have been able to buy black pepper. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:44 | |
It would be another one and a half millennia before the poor | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
in Britain could afford the same taste. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:52 | |
They clearly also cared a lot about food and flavour | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
and what they were eating. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:57 | |
The people in Herculaneum were definitely living to eat, | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
not just eating to live. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
The analysis of the material from the sewer tells us | 0:31:05 | 0:31:08 | |
the diet of Herculaneum's people was rich and varied. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
The fact that a sewer was built here at all tells us | 0:31:13 | 0:31:17 | |
something else about this place. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:19 | |
Some people imagine that a Roman town was a filthy, unhealthy | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
place, rather like a medieval city, or even Victorian London. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
But the Romans had an obsession with hygiene. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:40 | |
Their doctors said - you need to bathe regularly. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
And a town like Herculaneum has an abundant provision of public baths. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:48 | |
Here, we're in the suburban baths. This is the cold dip. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:53 | |
You can see that the water would come right up here. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:58 | |
And you can get, what, a dozen, even more people here at the same time. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:03 | |
And if you're worried that the water's going to get a bit | 0:32:03 | 0:32:05 | |
dirty with all those people, never fear. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
Here's the plughole, to let it out. They can change the water regularly. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:14 | |
We can't be sure if the entire population of Herculaneum was | 0:32:14 | 0:32:18 | |
allowed to use the baths, | 0:32:18 | 0:32:20 | |
but what we do know is that everyone had access to a clean water supply. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:25 | |
Were Roman towns filthy, unhealthy places, | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
as some people seem to think? | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
Look around you and you see the Romans really care about hygiene. | 0:32:34 | 0:32:40 | |
Their town is provided with running water, public fountains. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:45 | |
Look at this one, it's even got this lovely figure of Venus. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:48 | |
And what's she doing? She's washing her hair. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
Beautiful. She cares about the body, keeping clean. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
And it's not just a public fountain. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
Private houses have running water too. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:01 | |
Here we've got part of the water distribution system of the town. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:04 | |
Up on the top, there was a cistern. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:06 | |
We've got lead pipes running up and that gives the pressure | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
so that the water can go into individual houses. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
And there are pipes running right down the pavement, you can | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
see three pipes running there, feeding off into individual houses. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
It's estimated that the population of Herculaneum was around 4,000. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:27 | |
Small, even by Roman standards. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:29 | |
And no greater than some British villages today. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
And yet, even in the quarter of the town excavated, | 0:33:34 | 0:33:38 | |
they had three public baths, a primary | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
and secondary sewer system, and over 80 latrines. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:47 | |
They enjoyed a level of public amenities not matched | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
until modern times. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
Not only do they provide all these facilities, | 0:33:53 | 0:33:57 | |
but the magistrates are really keen to keep the place clean. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
And here, they've written up - | 0:34:01 | 0:34:03 | |
here's the name of Marcus Rufelius Robbia and Orlus Tettius | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
and they're given a pretty strict warning here - | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
no dumping rubbish by the public fountain. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:15 | |
And they then specify the punishment. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:18 | |
If you're a free man, you get fined, and if you're a slave, | 0:34:18 | 0:34:23 | |
you get flogged. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:24 | |
And suddenly there opens up in front of us | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
that vast gulf between the world of the free and the slave. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:32 | |
The slave is punished by flogging | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
and the flogging is a terrible thing, not just very painful, | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
but it leaves a scar, a mark on you for life. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
You can never become a citizen if you've been flogged. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:45 | |
And it's on this most infamous institution of the Ancient World, | 0:34:48 | 0:34:52 | |
slavery, that Herculaneum offers the most surprising insight of all. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:57 | |
This was a town of slaves and their owners. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
The most famous of those slave owners is commemorated right here. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:07 | |
Marcus Nonius Balbus here was Herculaneum's biggest benefactor. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:17 | |
He must have made a pile as a governor of a Roman province. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:21 | |
And then he spent some of his money on his town. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
And the walls up above us were rebuilt by Marcus Nonius Balbus. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:30 | |
Another sign of his enormous wealth was the sheer number of his slaves. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:35 | |
When a Roman gave freedom to a slave, the slave took his name. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
And there are over 50 people in Herculaneum who carried | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
the name of Marcus Nonius. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
It's a name that continued long after him. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
As this boundary marker between two home-owning ex-slaves shows. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
On this side is Iulia and it's her wall, private in perpetuity. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:03 | |
And on this side is Marcus Nonius Dama, freed man of Marcus. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
His wall, private in perpetuity. | 0:36:08 | 0:36:10 | |
And we can tell where he comes from because that name, Dama, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
is distinctive of Syria, as in Damascus. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
So he's come from the other side of the Mediterranean world. | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
A tiny town like Herculaneum was attracting immigrants from Syria | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
and beyond. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
Often, they came as slaves. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
But what this place and the Roman Empire offered them | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
was the chance to buy into something unique in the Ancient World. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
What makes Roman slavery | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
so different from any other slave society we know about is the | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
way that a slave could be not just freed, but given full citizenship. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:52 | |
It's this dynamic flow from slavery to citizenship that makes | 0:36:54 | 0:36:59 | |
Roman society quite unique. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
And there's nowhere better than Herculaneum to see that. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:06 | |
These marble tablets from Herculaneum are the only | 0:37:11 | 0:37:15 | |
surviving documents like this from the Roman world. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
They list the freedmen and full citizens of the town. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:23 | |
What they suggest is that up to 80% of the town's male citizens | 0:37:23 | 0:37:28 | |
were ex-slaves, pointing to a huge degree of social mobility, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:34 | |
even in the smallest of Roman towns. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
With over 300 skeletons, surely our anthropologists must have | 0:37:39 | 0:37:44 | |
evidence to work out the social make up of our group. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
This female seems to bear all the hallmarks of a slave. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:54 | |
But there's other unique evidence that can shed light | 0:39:01 | 0:39:06 | |
on the social make-up of the town. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
What's special about Herculaneum is that the records survive that | 0:39:09 | 0:39:13 | |
show that this was an upwardly mobile society where full | 0:39:13 | 0:39:17 | |
citizenship was the prize and slaves were battling to secure it. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:22 | |
This system had a dual purpose - to encourage slaves to work hard | 0:39:22 | 0:39:27 | |
and then buying into the empire by granting them citizenship. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:31 | |
Here in the storerooms of the Naples Museum are kept | 0:39:40 | 0:39:44 | |
one of the most valuable insights into the Roman world. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:49 | |
They are the wooden tablets on which people recorded their legal affairs. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:55 | |
Originally, these tablets had a top layer of wax on which | 0:39:56 | 0:40:01 | |
the legal wranglings of the people of Herculaneum were | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
painstakingly transcribed. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:06 | |
The heat of the eruption melted the wax, but we can still read | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
the minute scratch marks made on the carbonised wood below. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
Fortunately, when it came to legal matters, | 0:40:14 | 0:40:18 | |
the Romans didn't do things by halves. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:21 | |
Luckily, the Romans were really nervous about forgery. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:27 | |
So they wouldn't just have one copy of a document, | 0:40:27 | 0:40:30 | |
they had three copies. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:33 | |
You can see here some little holes, | 0:40:33 | 0:40:36 | |
which is the string which ties together the three copies. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:40 | |
And by looking at these different versions, | 0:40:41 | 0:40:46 | |
you can puzzle together a fascinating story. | 0:40:46 | 0:40:49 | |
A wonderful example of these documents | 0:40:57 | 0:41:01 | |
comes from the House of the Bicentenary and there was found | 0:41:01 | 0:41:05 | |
a dossier of dozens of documents recording a big legal battle. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:10 | |
The argument was whether a girl called Petronia Iusta was | 0:41:10 | 0:41:16 | |
free or a slave. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
And that depended on whether at the time of her birth, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
her mother was free or a slave. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
To resolve the problem, they call in members of the household, | 0:41:24 | 0:41:29 | |
neighbours, who all give witness and all have contradictory versions. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:33 | |
We don't know who won, but what it tells us is that in this case, | 0:41:35 | 0:41:39 | |
it was possible for a slave girl to challenge her status in court. | 0:41:39 | 0:41:44 | |
Another really important bundle of documents came from a house | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
just two doors down from Petronia Iusta. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:54 | |
It's really difficult just from looking at a Roman house to | 0:41:54 | 0:41:58 | |
tell what the status of the owner was. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
Look at this house. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:02 | |
Grand, lovely garden... This is very much a des res. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:05 | |
Very nice bedrooms in the back round here. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
And then over here we've got a magnificent great reception room. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:13 | |
You can hear it echoing...echoing... Wonderful! | 0:42:13 | 0:42:17 | |
And this lovely mosaic on the floor. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
And everything makes you think this must be someone really smart, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:24 | |
one of the elite of the town. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
As it happens, we know exactly who lived here | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
because in a bedroom right up here was a bundle of documents | 0:42:29 | 0:42:34 | |
and it's this character Venidius Ennychus and he's an ex-slave. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:39 | |
He's obviously very much a favoured slave | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
and he's given his freedom, that was quite common... | 0:42:43 | 0:42:46 | |
But he's given his freedom underage. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:49 | |
Terrific. Now I am a free man. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:51 | |
But that wasn't enough for him | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
because he wanted to be a full Roman citizen too. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
And it was really worth it. | 0:42:57 | 0:42:59 | |
A citizen gets the vote, but he can also inherit property. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:04 | |
Now, normally, you have to be 30 to become a full Roman citizen, | 0:43:04 | 0:43:08 | |
if you start as a slave, but there's a special legal loophole | 0:43:08 | 0:43:12 | |
and Venidius Ennicus uses it. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
If you get legally married and then have a child, declare the child | 0:43:15 | 0:43:21 | |
before the local magistrate, they can give you a certificate | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
that says you now merit Roman citizenship. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:30 | |
Here we have an example of a bit written in ink | 0:43:30 | 0:43:33 | |
and though black ink is a little hard to make | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
out against charcoal, if I get the light right, | 0:43:36 | 0:43:39 | |
I can see "L Venidius Ennicus", there's his name. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:45 | |
And here we can see he's declaring the birth of a daughter | 0:43:45 | 0:43:49 | |
before the magistrates. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
That a daughter was born to him by his wife Olivia Acte. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:08 | |
We know he achieved his ambition and made it to full citizenship | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
because we can find his name inscribed publicly in marble. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:18 | |
But it was very important to him to keep the legal proof, just like his | 0:44:20 | 0:44:25 | |
birth certificate and other personal documents locked away in his house. | 0:44:25 | 0:44:30 | |
Living here at the foot of a peaceful Mount Vesuvius, | 0:44:32 | 0:44:36 | |
Venidius Ennicus and Petronia Iusta | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
had no idea their world was about to end. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:43 | |
And the possessions found with the skeletons are a poignant | 0:44:51 | 0:44:55 | |
reminder of what the people of Herculaneum chose to leave | 0:44:55 | 0:44:59 | |
and what to take with them when the catastrophe came. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
A dazzling array of coins, gold and jewellery - | 0:45:06 | 0:45:10 | |
craftsmanship as intricate as the society to which they belonged. | 0:45:10 | 0:45:15 | |
A surgeon's instruments, perhaps for a doctor to attend to the wounded. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:31 | |
Who this medic was remains a mystery. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:36 | |
This skeleton was a mother, found clutching her child. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:43 | |
And given the choice of what to take with him, | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
this two-year-old was discovered with neither treasure nor toys. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:55 | |
He was found embracing a pet dog. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
And then, the last skeletons to be found, the group of two women | 0:46:01 | 0:46:05 | |
and the small child with the silver earrings. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
97% of the bodies found in Herculaneum | 0:46:58 | 0:47:02 | |
were discovered here at the ancient shoreline. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
Unlike Pompeii, where they were spread across the summit. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
There must have been a reason they came here, | 0:47:10 | 0:47:13 | |
and one that might perhaps tell us how they faced up to disaster. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:17 | |
Look at the construction of this base. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:21 | |
Solid Roman concrete with the strongest kind of vaulted roof. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:27 | |
This sort of space would be ideal for taking refuge in an earthquake. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:33 | |
And what our research has shown, is that in the years running up | 0:47:33 | 0:47:37 | |
to the eruption there were constant earthquakes. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
They must have learnt to use these spaces as a place of refuge, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:44 | |
a sort of bomb shelter. | 0:47:44 | 0:47:45 | |
Then, as now, Italy is prone to devastating earthquakes. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:52 | |
One shook Pompeii and Herculaneum in 63 AD. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
Its impact was such that it is recorded in a marble relief. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:02 | |
You can see the Temple of Jupiter tipping lopsided, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
as it shakes under the force of the ground beneath it. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:08 | |
In the run-up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
this seismic activity increased. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
Its effects are starkly | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
apparent on the buildings along Herculaneum's ancient shoreline. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:22 | |
The people of Herculaneum were used to earthquake activity | 0:48:24 | 0:48:28 | |
almost continuously for decades before the eruption, | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
not just THE big earthquake, | 0:48:31 | 0:48:34 | |
but a process by which the crust of the Earth popped up and down. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:39 | |
Over here we can see dramatic evidence of this. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
We have the suburban baths, | 0:48:42 | 0:48:45 | |
and up there we can see how the windows of the baths | 0:48:45 | 0:48:48 | |
are half-blocked in, | 0:48:48 | 0:48:50 | |
right up there, because the sea is crashing against the wall, | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
and down here the sand is piling against the bottom of the building. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
The seismic activity caused the sea level to rise | 0:49:00 | 0:49:03 | |
and fall by as much as five metres - that's 16 feet - | 0:49:03 | 0:49:08 | |
over a 20 year period. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
Here I'm standing on top of a massive wall, | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
built to keep out the sea. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:14 | |
Originally, the sea was way out there, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
and as it advanced and rose and came in, | 0:49:17 | 0:49:20 | |
it came smashing against this house. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
This is the House of the Telephus Relief, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:25 | |
and you can see here that they have had to block in a whole | 0:49:25 | 0:49:28 | |
series of arches, and down below, we discovered, | 0:49:28 | 0:49:32 | |
there is an entire level of the house that they have had to | 0:49:32 | 0:49:36 | |
abandon entirely because of the rising sea. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
They chose to adapt to a perilous environment, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:45 | |
rather than abandoning their town. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
Why? | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
The Roman writer, Seneca, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
advising on the response to the disaster of '63, | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
gives us one reason. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:56 | |
He said, "There was no point fleeing this particular earthquake. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:01 | |
"Earthquakes could happen anywhere." | 0:50:01 | 0:50:04 | |
Tragically for the people here, | 0:50:04 | 0:50:06 | |
Seneca understood neither the geology of earthquakes, | 0:50:06 | 0:50:10 | |
nor the connection between what was going on under the ground | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
and the volcanic potential of Mount Vesuvius. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
And there is another clue as to why people didn't leave. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:22 | |
Here, in the Naples Museum, | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
they're busy packing stuff up to go on exhibition, and we're | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
just in time to capture this one, which is a bit of a favourite. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
Favourite because it is a picture of Vesuvius. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
It is over on its side | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
but you can just about make out that here is the volcano. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
And by the volcano, is a figure of a god, the god of wine, Bacchus, | 0:50:41 | 0:50:46 | |
and he is completely clad in grapes. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:49 | |
That points to the enormous fertility of the slopes of Vesuvius. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:54 | |
Here, you can even see vines | 0:50:54 | 0:50:56 | |
growing in rows. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:57 | |
Another interesting thing about this - Vesuvius has got | 0:51:00 | 0:51:05 | |
a cone on top. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:06 | |
It hasn't yet blown its top off. | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
And that tells us two things. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
For the Romans, Vesuvius is a safe place, no eruptions, | 0:51:11 | 0:51:16 | |
and it's an enormously fertile place. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
Why would anyone want to leave it? | 0:51:19 | 0:51:22 | |
The people were then, and are now, deeply attached to the landscape. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:31 | |
Signor Ambrosio runs a vineyard on the ash-rich slopes of Vesuvius | 0:51:34 | 0:51:40 | |
and is very proud of his wine. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:42 | |
The colour of love. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:46 | |
The wine is called Lacryma Christi, literally the "Tears Of Christ". | 0:51:48 | 0:51:53 | |
Its production was thought | 0:51:53 | 0:51:55 | |
to date back to the 18th century, | 0:51:55 | 0:51:57 | |
till Signor Ambrosio uncovered | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
some extraordinary new evidence in his vineyard. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
Oh, you've made me a happy man! | 0:52:03 | 0:52:07 | |
A Roman dolium. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
That's what I like to see. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:11 | |
HE SPEAKS ITALIAN | 0:52:11 | 0:52:13 | |
This is a trace... This is amazing! | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
This is ancient Roman wine on the lip here, this is the must | 0:52:26 | 0:52:31 | |
and actually, if I run my finger there, it's rough. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:34 | |
And here it's smooth and slightly sticky. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
They have conducted DNA analysis of the must here, | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
and it emerges that it is the same as the modern wine. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
And, with his wine, vineyard and land at stake, | 0:52:49 | 0:52:52 | |
Signor Ambrosio has too much to lose by leaving Mount Vesuvius. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:57 | |
Just like his Roman forefathers. | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
Back in 79 AD, no-one in Herculaneum had any | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
idea that it might erupt, let alone | 0:53:08 | 0:53:11 | |
the scale of the catastrophe that was about to unfold. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
The disaster took many hours to play out, probably more than 12 | 0:53:25 | 0:53:30 | |
hours before the final lethal surge that killed people arrived. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:35 | |
In the meantime, | 0:53:35 | 0:53:37 | |
the population must have agonised about how to save themselves. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:41 | |
Perhaps thinking of what they did in earthquakes in the past, | 0:53:41 | 0:53:45 | |
many of them came down here to the ancient shore. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
Some were out on the beach, some inside these arches. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:52 | |
The vast majority found in the arches were women | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
or children, whilst those on the beach were nearly all male. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:03 | |
Perhaps the timescale can explain this strange separation, | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
and how these people organised themselves before disaster struck. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:11 | |
Humans tend to react to crises differently, | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
if the crisis is sudden or a very short time, or if the crisis is long. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:25 | |
And when the crisis is sudden, the strongest survive. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:31 | |
The males. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:32 | |
Adult males - young. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
When the crisis is much longer, | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
so there is more possibility to organise. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
The reason is protection for the weakest, so children and women. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:45 | |
It depends how much time you have. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:46 | |
If this is collapsing now, we rush away. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
If they tell us, "In 15 minutes, this ceiling will collapse," | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
we organise. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:54 | |
For instance, it happened on the Titanic, where they had hours, | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
so at the end more women and children survived than males. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:05 | |
With Herculaneum you had even more hours, | 0:55:05 | 0:55:08 | |
and are we seeing special treatment, are we seeing different | 0:55:08 | 0:55:12 | |
treatment of women and children from males? | 0:55:12 | 0:55:16 | |
They put the family inside the chamber, | 0:55:16 | 0:55:19 | |
and the males were looking around, "What do we do, what's going on?" | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
But it's rather nice, because you have got the Romans being real gentleman. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:26 | |
They're saying, "Women and children, please, take refuge from this | 0:55:26 | 0:55:30 | |
"disaster and we will be brave, we will stay outside." | 0:55:30 | 0:55:33 | |
The fact that there were | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
so many men out on the beach suggests an act of self-sacrifice. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
But by the final phase of eruption, escape was impossible. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
There ash was now falling at a rate of over a metre an hour, | 0:55:48 | 0:55:52 | |
and would envelop our skeletons, | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
capturing their last moments of life. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:56 | |
A mother, embracing her baby. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:08 | |
A boy clasping his pet dog. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:10 | |
And two women cradling a girl with silver earrings. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:16 | |
The arches offered protection from earthquakes, | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
not from the wrath of Mount Vesuvius. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:25 | |
Nothing could have prepared these people for what happened here. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
The skeletons are more than a grisly reminder of death and disaster. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:37 | |
Like so much else in Herculaneum, they give us a vivid | 0:56:38 | 0:56:43 | |
and sharply-focused picture of people's lives. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:47 | |
And it is a surprising picture. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:50 | |
From their homes, to what they ate, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
to how they ate it | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
and the values they held dear, | 0:56:56 | 0:56:58 | |
it is tempting to talk about the ordinary Roman, | 0:56:58 | 0:57:03 | |
but it is difficult to pigeonhole Venidius Ennicus, Petronia Iusta | 0:57:03 | 0:57:06 | |
or the skeletons from the arches in this way. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
We tend to think of the Roman world as one of brutal contrast | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
between rich and poor, master and slave. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
Herculaneum shows us a more complex and a more fluid society. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:28 | |
It gives us back the people in the middle, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
and far from being what we think of as "ordinary", | 0:57:31 | 0:57:34 | |
they are quite extraordinary. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:36 | |
This was a place where slaves could be flogged, | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
but also a town where they | 0:57:44 | 0:57:46 | |
could be freed, earn citizenship, | 0:57:46 | 0:57:49 | |
own property and gain dignity. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:51 | |
Where immigrants from across the Empire | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
and beyond could strive in a land of opportunity to enjoy | 0:57:56 | 0:58:02 | |
a quality of life unparalleled for Antiquity, | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
and as full citizens, | 0:58:06 | 0:58:08 | |
make themselves at home in this new Roman world. | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
A world that would continue to flourish for another three centuries | 0:58:12 | 0:58:17 | |
after the destruction of Herculaneum. | 0:58:17 | 0:58:19 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:29 | 0:58:32 |