Under an 1815 Volcano Eruption, Remains of a 'Lost Kingdom'
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
One of history's most violent volcanic eruptions blasted the island of Sumbawa in the East Indies in 1815. The sulfurous gases and fiery ashes from Mount Tambora cast a pall over the entire world, causing the global cooling of 1816, known as the "year without a summer."
A team of American and Indonesian scientists has now found remains of what it says is the "lost kingdom of Tambora."
In an announcement yesterday by the Graduate School of Oceanography of the University of Rhode Island, the scientists reported uncovering bronze bowls, ceramic pots, fine china, glass, and iron tools in gullies running through the jungle growth 15 miles from the volcano.
Preliminary excavations, they said, exposed the carbonized framework of a house about 20 by 33 feet in size. The log beams, even some of the bamboo siding and thatch roof, are charcoal black, but the original shape of the house is preserved. Skeletons of two adults lay where they died, one of them clutching a large knife.
"There's potential that Tambora could be the Pompeii of the East, and it could be of great cultural interest," said Haraldur Sigurdsson, a geophysicist at Rhode Island who specializes in the study of volcanoes.
The volcano is dormant, not dead. Twice since 1815, it has rumbled to brief life, mere burps compared with the destructive eruption that cost the mountain more than 3,000 feet of its height, reducing its elevation to 9,354 feet. The summit crater still smells of sulfur venting from the depths. [CONT'D. HERE]
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