 Thanks to the eruption of Vesuvius, Herculaneum is one of the best preserved cities in the ancient world and it has so much wooden furniture and wooden constructions preserved that you never see. Until now, we're going to explore some of the most amazing wooden objects from Herculaneum and from the ancient Roman world. Pyroclastic flows from Vesuvius covered Herculaneum as deep as 25 meters covering the shoreline changing it forever and covering the city. And due to this level of preservation, we have a lot of wood onsite visible. We see staircases preserved in carbonized wood. We see the reconstructions of multiple stories and the restores in the 30s and 40s actually preserved a lot of that wood in the upper decks. Here are some beams of wood for the overhangs in front of shops and doorways, lintels still in carbonized wood. This is what makes Herculaneum so special. As you walk into spaces, you can look up and oftentimes see the blackened stubs of timbers that once extended to sustain floors on the upper stories. But from this location, some incredibly well preserved pieces of furniture are on display now. Some Herculaneum, but they're in Portici, a nice pleasant walk down the street in a magnificent palace. I want to take you and show you some of the most amazing things you've ever seen that come from the ancient world. What's so extraordinary about this is wood is rarely preserved. We need special conditions to preserve the wood. But here is an example where we're going to see some things that don't exist anywhere else in the world from the time when Herculaneum is destroyed by Vesuvius. First just a few words about the protagonist, the unsung heroes of this story today. The Fabri, the Carpenters, and they had various associations, Collegia. We see first this image from a shop in Pompeii, and the second one is a marble relief from the association in charge of also taking care of the Colt statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. We oftentimes have these records, in this case, artistic depictions of the Carpenters, but now we can see the handiwork of those Carpenters from these works in Herculaneum. We start off with this small boat found in the western bazaar of Herculaneum, and there are two interesting features so well preserved. This is the painted straight prowl with the red paint still visible, and this other object is the vertical winch which was used to pull boats ashore. Now we turn to an extraordinary element made in wood found from the house of the relief of Telephos, and we can see the modern roof that covers the room where the original wooden roof was blown off into the sea by the eruption from Vesuvius. From the excavation of 2009 and 2010, now we have a reconstruction of that wooden ceiling with vibrant colors, and we see where the reconstruction comes from, this beautiful inlaid wooden coffered ceiling. And we see some of those colors are still vibrant, Egyptian blue and even red. This was a great discovery and it's made of fur wood. It truly is something extraordinary recently discovered from Herculaneum. Here's a bed made of spruce wood with a headboard. It was found in a shop in the Orientalis II insula, room number 10, and it is something extraordinary to see handcrafted with some elements of inlaid wood. Think about how rare this is. It's a true standout from Herculaneum. Here's another rarity from Herculaneum made of white fur and rosewood. We have the small table and what is so amazing about this level of preservation is that we can quite clearly see here the intarsio. We're used to seeing opus sectile intarsio in marble. Now here we have it with a variety of woods. Here's an object of wood that looks like it was made yesterday, made of oak. This is a crib for a baby and it's found in the house of Marcus Pilius primigenius grannianus. And what is so sad about the story is in the room with the crib there were found five adult skeletons and the remains of the skeleton of a baby. So we can imagine that all those people were once huddled in this room with this baby, the child's room, and ultimately all met their fate. And this was excavated between the 26th and 28th in March 1940. Here's a bench. It looks like it could have been made today. It was found on the deco-monus maximus of Herculaneum. And now we take a look at this Lorarium shrine made of wood with capitals of Luna marble painted red. And it's made of fur and poplar wood and we see how heavily carbonized the wood is. And of course these have undergone years and years of restoration over the decades. It was found in the house of the black room and we have a number of idols that were worshiped on the left here. We see a lar figure and on the right probably a genius of the house. Here's another stunning Lorarium on top of a cabinet heavily restored at the base here. This is found in the house of the wooden Lorarium. And what we have then is the coverage reconstructed but the items that were found in the archeological site have been replaced inside like here in the Lorarium the statuette of Hercules and a statuette of Isis Fortuna TK figure on the right. This is something really to behold and to enjoy. You have the left door still on its hinges and as we pivot up we'll be able to see some of the inlaid wood in the Lorarium space. This truly gives us an idea of the quality the craftsmanship available in the Roman world. Here we have two wooden figures the statuette of a male figure and on the right a female figure. They come from two different locations but together they probably both had religious associations. Here we have from Herculaneum a precious remainder of the wax tablet so you would have inserted within this wooden framework a layer of wax and you would write into it with your stylus pen. Here we have a wooden box that was used as a wallet and it was inlaid with bronze and silver and there's the pile of coins that were found next to it. This was found in the possession of a deceased person waiting on the shore of Herculaneum waiting to flee he didn't make it. This is his treasure in his hand that he took with him as he tried to escape. Here's another wallet made of wood better preserved from the house of the two atriums and here we have carbonized wood and bronze. You can see the mechanism for sliding open the top that still works and you have a number of coins one of them dates the time of the spaition. Now let's travel next door to Herculaneum to the villa of the propriety famous for the carbonized propriety scrolls here is a restoration of it excavations continued recently even in 2007 and that's where these were found beautiful remains of tables and tripods inlaid with ivory so we can look at some of the details here's a dancing figure on top of a bucranium an ox skull with fillets so we have a lot of religious scenery here we have Dionysus and a lot of Dionysiac scenes this truly is extraordinary you can see the layer of ivory on top of the skeletal framework in wood this is one of the great discoveries recently in the villa of propriety and here we have from the deco-monus maximus a maple trunk with the hinges that still work back in Herculaneum you can go to many houses and still find a lot of artifacts made of carbonized wood it's always an adventure there's always something to discover in Herculaneum so just enjoy this site enjoy the history enjoy the cats on site it's all part of the experience thanks so much for watching we hope you enjoy this exhibit on the furniture of Herculaneum subscribe and follow along for more content on ancient Rome and throughout the Empire