Herculaneum, a smaller and wealthier seaside town than its neighbor Pompeii, was buried by the same AD 79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, but by a different mechanism: rather than falling ash, it was engulfed by pyroclastic flows of superheated gas and volcanic material that carbonized wood, food, and even fabric while sealing the city under many meters of solidified rock, preserving organic material more completely than at Pompeii. Excavations have uncovered multi-story houses with intact wooden beams, furniture, and doors; the Villa of the Papyri, a luxurious seaside villa that yielded a library of carbonized papyrus scrolls, the only such library to survive from the ancient world; and, more grimly, hundreds of skeletons of residents who had sheltered in boathouses along the ancient shoreline while awaiting rescue that never came. [Editor’s note: the original site listed this page but never added content. This paragraph was drafted as a placeholder and should be reviewed/expanded by Dr. Siegel.]