The roof and suspended ceiling of the marble room in the House of the Telephus Relief at Herculaneum

Abstract

The timber roof and suspended ceiling of the marble room in the House of the Telephus Relief were discovered during a larger project to enhance Herculaneum’s ancient shoreline, one of many initiatives undertaken by the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP). Preliminary work to drain rain and groundwater led to the cleaning of the E part of the ancient shoreline, an area never fully investigated during previous excavations (fig. 1). The work was carried out between August 2009 and June 2010 in the area between the S corner of the Suburban Baths and the adjacent wing of the House of the Telephus Relief. Beneath the layer of solidified volcanic material from the eruption of A.D. 79 was discovered a collapse of timbers, covering an area about 55 m. Thanks to the particular conditions of its volcanic burial, the wood was perfectly preserved and not carbonized (fig. 2). Tests carried out by CNR-IVALSA showed that almost all the samples were from the silver fir species.