7. The Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted but thankfully its unique private library survived the disaster.
The town of Herculaneum was almost completely destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79. Located in the foothills of the volcano, many of its residents would have had fine collections of art – and of books. However, just one private library survived the most famous natural disaster of the ancient world. The collection of the so-called Villa of Papyri is truly unique, offering a rare glimpse into the public and intellectual life of Rome. In the aftermath of the Vesuvius eruption, Herculaneum was left covered in 30 meters of volcanic ash. The town was only excavated in 1750.
The Swiss engineer Karl Weber dug tunnels through the ash, uncovering the town’s secrets. One of the key findings a huge private library. What’s more, around 1,800 manuscripts, all of them papyrus scrolls, had been carbonized due to the heat of the eruption. Almost all were stored in wooden tubes. By the middle of last century, not even 200 of the 1,800 had been deciphered. More recently, technology has allowed scholars to scan and digitize almost all of the writing. It’s been shown that much of the library was devoted to philosophy, though the collection also included poetry and histories.