In the shadow of Vesuvius lie the ruins of the ancient city of Herculaneum. His life froze during a catastrophic eruption in 79 AD. Found the dead city only at the beginning of the XVIII century. Official excavations began in 1738, and exactly two centuries later, archaeologists unearthed a building that is now called the bicentennial home.

The last 30 years it has been closed for restoration, and now again meets tourists. The house occupies 600 square meters. A noble family lived here.

Entrance leads to the large atrium - front hall. The floor and walls are decorated with mosaics and frescoes..

From the atrium you can get to the rest of the room at home..

Herculaneum died after Pompeev and Stabiev, and most residents managed to escape. But the city itself was buried under an even larger layer of tuff and ash than its ill-fated neighbors.

In places, the layer height reached 25 meters.

However, a layer of tuff protected the buildings from the pressure of ash, and not all roofs of houses collapsed. Preserved items are well preserved, archaeologists even found here scrolls of papyrus.

The erupting Vesuvius threw a huge red-hot cloud of ash, stones and smoke, which rose to 33 kilometers. The temperature of the pyroclastic flows reached 700 degrees Celsius, and the ashes reached even Egypt and Syria.