'Lost Kingdom' Discovered on Volcanic Island in Indonesia
Scientists announced today the discovery of a small 'kingdom' on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa thought to have been destroyed completely by the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.
The eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815 killed 117,000 people in Southeast Asia, including those believed buried under ten feet(three meters)of pumice(浮石)and ash in the recently discovered village.
The team, led by University of Rhode Island volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson, hailed the discovery as the 'Pompeii of the East.'
Pompeii is an Italian village buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A. D. 79. Excavations(挖掘)there have yielded delicately preserved artifacts(手工艺品)and insight to ancient Roman culture.
'The Tambora discovery gives us a window of the culture at that time that we couldn't get any other way,' Sigurdsson said.
Tips Lead to Find
Scientists discovered the village in 2004 in a valley that cut through the thick layer of pumice and ash. Local guides had told the team about artifacts found in the area. Ground-penetrating radar later confirmed the first evidence of the village: a small house.
The researchers excavated the house, where they found the remains of two s and their belongings: bronze bowls, ceramic(陶器的)pots, iron tools, pieces of furniture, and other artifacts.
The design and decoration of the artifacts suggest that the Tamboran culture was linked through trade to Vietnam and Cambodia, Sigurdsson said.
Records from a historian who visited the village prior to the eruption further suggest that the Tamborans spoke a language unlike others in Indonesia but similar to the languages of Cambodia and Laos, Sigurdsson added.
Peter Lape, an anthropologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the discovery should add insight into a part of the East Indies before it came under the influence of Western colonists.
'The Dutch were trying to regulate shipping in the East Indies, but they hadn't made much impact on the local political structure,' he said. 'So for places like Sumbawa, there's not much historical record.'
Devastating Eruption
The 1815 eruption of Tambora ejected up to 24 cubic miles(100 cubic kilometers)of molten and crushed rock and sent out 400 million tons of sulfurous(硫磺的)gases 27 miles(43 kilometers)into the atmosphere. By contrast the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State ejected 0.1 cubic mile(0.5 cubic kilometer)of lava; the 1883 eruption of Krakatau(Krakatoa)in Indonesia ejected 3.5 miles(15 cubic kilometers)of molten rock; Vesuvius ejected 1.4 cubic miles(6 cubic kilometers)of lava. 'Tambora is way beyond any of these,' Sigurdsson said. 'It's truly the largest on Earth in recent history.'
Before the eruption the volcano stood at about 13,800 feet(4,200 meters). Today it stands at about 9,200 feet(2,800 meters)and has a 4,100-foot-deep(1,250-meter-deep)caldera(喷火山口), or crater(弹坑).
The sulfurous gases spewed into the atmosphere by Tambora formed aerosol droplets that reflected the sun's rays before they reached the ground. This caused a year of global cooling in 1816 now known as the year without a summer.
The cooler temperatures triggered widespread crop failures, food shortages, and disease outbreaks, perhaps killing an additional 200,000 people worldwide, Sigurdsson said. 'There were tremendous problems in central Europe and all over the world, including the U. S. ,' he said. The growing season in New England shrunk by a hundred days, which historians say prompted many farmers to abandon their fields and head west.
City Discovery
Wanting to know more about this devastating eruption, Sigurdsson traveled to the remote Indonesian island in 1986 with University of

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