What kind of gas caused the end of excavations/tunneling of the "villa of the papyrii" in the 18th century?
Upvote:4
If we look at the book Buried Herculaneum, By Ethel Ross Barker (1908) we find on page 18 a discussion of these excavations:
To the actual physical difficulties of the work was added great discomfort from the cold dark and damp and from occasional exhalations of poisonous gases especially of carbonic acid gas and sulphuretted hydrogen during the excavations on the Villa.
The terminology is 1908, but seems to mesh up with what is expected in volcanic caves. Hydrogen and Sulfur gases and carbon dioxide type compounds. Looking at the PDF Hazards of Volcanic Gases Table 57.1 lists Carbon Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide and Hydrogen Sulfide as dangers in volcanic cave environments.
update:
Note that there are major differences between the characteristics of the flows received by the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. From a PBS page
Pompeii, lying to the east and south of the mountain, was buried under approximately 40 feet of fine ash. Deadly at the time, this layer of ash was relatively easy to excavate seventeen centuries later when the city was rediscovered. Herculaneum, on the other hand, lying to the west of Vesuvius, experience its full fury with a hot thermal blast, poisonous gasses, and a flow of molten volcanic mud that, when cooled, buried the remains under an 80 foot deep bed with the density of concrete. For this reason Herculaneum has been much more difficult to excavate, and some areas of the city have remained inaccessible due to pockets of trapped gas.
So this article seems to equate the gases with those of volcanic origin as well.
More post
- 📝 How important was the Suez Canal to the Allies during WWII?
- 📝 In early WW2, how much of the merchant marine was American?
- 📝 Animosity between Mandarin-speaking and Cantonese-speaking Chinese?
- 📝 What is the source of this quote about hope and POWs?
- 📝 How did Greece avoid the Soviet sphere of influence?
- 📝 How was a line looped under a sailing vessel for keelhauling?
- 📝 Why did Russia inherit the USSR status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto power?
- 📝 Did women in ancient Rome wear corsets, and if so, what were they made of?
- 📝 Was there a "literate class" outside the Shi in Zhou-dynasty China?
- 📝 Which king of Burgundy sheltered two Robertians?
- 📝 What led the U.S. to standardize option contracts to 100 shares per lot?
- 📝 What is the origin of the rampant lion herald?
- 📝 Why does the word "al-Ahmar" appear in the name of ibn al-Ahmar?
- 📝 What happened to the holders of German war bonds after WW1?
- 📝 sense of time in people with no means for time measurement
- 📝 What was the impact of utilitarianism upon the development of psychiatric care in 18th-19th century England?
- 📝 Has the training of Russian troops improved since 1989?
- 📝 Does the Great Revival and the Great Awakening refer to the same thing?
- 📝 Why did ancient cultures (e.g. the Mesopotamians) use sexagesimal?
- 📝 How do large landowners affect a state?
- 📝 Number of foreigners in the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht during WWII
- 📝 What was the largest strike, by % of a country's population, in history?
- 📝 Did Army Group Center have easier going up to Smolensk than between Smolensk and Moscow?
- 📝 Do we have any authentic Native American flute music from the 18th century or earlier?
- 📝 What was the death toll during the Inquisition?
- 📝 Has any country ever diverted an international flight in order to arrest a wanted person?
- 📝 What were the business models of real estate development in ancient Rome?
- 📝 Is Indus civilization over 8000 years old?
- 📝 What calendar did the Mauryan Empire use?
- 📝 When and how was the cairn structure in the "Sea of Galilee" covered in water?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What kind of gas caused the end of excavations/tunneling of the "villa of the papyrii" in the 18th century?
- 📝 What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
- 📝 What caused the imposition of strict celibacy for Catholic priests during the 11th century?
- 📝 What kind of labor was used to build the Egyptian pyramids?
- 📝 What caused the 1979 Iranian revolution to become Islamic?
- 📝 What kind of evidence (if any) could be used to identify a large conquest in the time before writing?
- 📝 What were the factors that caused the world to move away from the Gold Standard in the 20th century?
- 📝 What kind of armor did the soldiers use in pre-gunpowder Southeast Asia?
- 📝 What caused the decline of the Spanish empire?
- 📝 What happened to rural gas stations in the US?
- 📝 At the time of Sputnik, what kind of radios were common in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 What kinds of goods were commonly smuggled in the Roman Empire up to the end of the 3rd century AD?
- 📝 What made India pull out troops and return the captured territory at the end of 1971 Indo-Pak war?
- 📝 What kind of ID Number, if any, did the Soviets institute for all their citizens?
- 📝 What is the meaning of Verte! at the end of Sisi’s autopsy report?
- 📝 What kind of wood was the standard decking for aircraft carriers in World War 2?
- 📝 What caused the turning point in Hundred Years' War?
- 📝 What caused women to lose their access to resources and become a part of men's possessions with the start of the agriculture era?
- 📝 What caused the long lasting of peace in during the Heian Period?
- 📝 What did the end of the western front look like at the Swiss Border?
- 📝 What deaths were caused by weapons deployed during a war long after the war has ended?
- 📝 What were the factors that caused debtors' prison to disappear in most parts of the world in the 20th century?
- 📝 What was the size of the British East India fleet at the end of the War of 1812?
- 📝 What Roman institutions were obsolete by the end of the Republic?
- 📝 What caused the decline in support for the Protectionist Party of Australia?
- 📝 To what extent was the Cold War caused by post World War 2 economics?
- 📝 What kind of incense was used by the Sumerians?
- 📝 What were the largest European treasuries, in gold and silver, at the end of the Seven Years War?
- 📝 What kind of heating did Moscow have in the early Soviet Union (1917 - 1930)?
- 📝 What caused the Mule Shoe salient?