Lost Kingdom of Tambora Discovered

From Discovery News:

A Pompeii of the East has emerged from 10 feet of pumice and ash on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, according to a U.S. volcanologist who has discovered what appear to be the remnants of the lost kingdom of Tambora.
Wiped out in 1815 by the largest volcanic eruption in human history, the tiny kingdom is known only from a few reports from the Dutch and British colonial governments that ruled the East Indies in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
"It's a remote island with very little access, so it has been little studied over the years," said Haraldur Sigurdsson, professor of volcanology at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.
Like Pompeii, frozen in time by Mount Vesuvius's eruption in Italy in 79 A.D., the kingdom of Tambora has been lying undisturbed under volcanic debris and ash for centuries.
"All the people, their houses and culture are still encapsulated there as they were in 1815," Sigurdsson said.

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