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 on site 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, and the upper decks here are some beams of wood for the overhangs in front of shops and doorways, lentils 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. They're from Herculaneum, but they're in Portici, a nice pleasant walk down the street and 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 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 cold statue of Jupiter-Offinus Maximus on the Capitol-Line 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 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-cofford 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 Insela, room number 10, and it is something extraordinary to see hand-crafted 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 this small table. And what is so amazing about this level of preservation is that we can quite clearly see here the intarsio, or used to seeing opus sectylate 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 Primaigenius Granianus. And what is so sad about the story is in the room with the crib that 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 and March 1940. Here's a bench. It looks like it could have been made today. It was found on the decomannus maximus of Herculaneum. 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 popular 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 large 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 we constructed, but the items that were found in the archaeological site have been replaced inside like here. And 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 in-lade 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 remained 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 in-lade 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 and he took with him as he tried to escape. Here's another wallet made of wood, better preserved from the house of the two atrium and here we have carbonized wood and bronze. You can see the mechanism for sliding open the top that still works and you have more number of coins. One of them dates the time of the Spatian. Now let's travel next door to Herculaneum to the villa of the Papyrite famous for the carbonized papyrite scrolls. Here's a restoration of it. Excavations continued recently even in 2007 and that's where these were found. Beautiful remains of tables and tripods in-lade with ivory. So we can look at some of the details. Here's a dancing figure on top of a Bukranium, 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 Papyrite. And here we have from the Decomannus 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. 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