Word: mudding
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...floods that tore through the Renaissance city of Florence have gone, but the mud and shock remain. So far, 885 objects of irreplaceable art have been declared casualties. The principal victim: Cimabue's 13th century Crucifix ion, drowned inside the Santa Croce museum, where waters rose more than 14 feet. "It's a corpse, the paint is gone, and it can only be displayed as a relic," said University of Pennsylvania Art Professor Frederick Hartt...
...tenth of its 20,000 citizens and inflicting terrible damage on the city. Herculaneum, however, was more fortunate. Granted time by the wind, which blew west toward Pompeii, nearly all of Herculaneum's 5,000 inhabitants were able to flee before the wall of hot lava and mud rolled down Vesuvius' flank, so gently that it left eggshells on some lunch tables. The town vanished, almost intact, to a depth of 65 to 85 feet...
...until 1709, when monks in Resina, a city superimposed by chance on Herculaneum's grave, uncovered some marble theater seats while sinking a well. Other diggers plundered Herculaneum of everything their tunnels exposed. "It is one of the tragic ironies of human endeavor," writes Deiss, "that the suffocating mud did less damage to Herculaneum than the earliest excavators...
...that it is a put-on. Who ever heard of the long-nosed bandicoot? Or the brolgas, which break into a wild, wing-flapping dance at the sound of a bell? How about the racquet-tailed drongo, and the mudskipper, a hippopotamus-shaped fish that likes to skitter across mud flats and climb mangrove roots? Or the mallee fowl, which assiduously builds an incubator for its eggs and keeps the temperature inside at a steady 95°, come rain or shine? Curious specimens these, but Naturalist Gerald Durrell is only reporting what he sees, and reporting it with grace...
...flood waters themselves were less harmful than the debris they carried -- the flotsam, mud, garbage, sewage and oil which swept through Florence. Bursting fuel oil tanks caused the worst destruction, spreading a thin oily film through the city which disfigured anything it touched. Some reports estimated damage to Florentine art works at 150 million dollars...