Pompei and Herculaneum are the only Roman cities of the first century CE preserved in their complete urban form, frozen by the eruption of Vesuvius. Streets, houses, paintings and even loaves of bread survive largely as they stood on the day the volcano buried them.
At a glance
Pompei’s main street, the Via dell’Abbondanza, still shows its original lava paving, the stone plinths of public fountains at the crossroads, and painted notices advertising elections, baths and food stalls. At the end of the street rises Vesuvius itself, the volcano whose eruption on 24 August 79 CE sealed the city under pumice and ash.
The plaster casts for which Pompei is best known were devised by Giuseppe Fiorelli, superintendent of the excavations from 1860 to 1875. He realised that the pumice layer held cavities left where bodies, wood and fabric had decayed, and by pouring liquid plaster into these voids he could recover the three-dimensional form of victims at the moment of death. Several thousand casts have been produced since, including a chained dog caught in mid-struggle and a pregnant woman found in the granary.
Recent excavation in the Regio V quarter uncovered a thermopolium, a Roman fast-food counter, with its painted menu of duck, cockerel, dog and wine still visible above the storage jars, some of which still held food remains at the time of the eruption. At Herculaneum, carbonised papyrus scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri have begun to yield their texts through multi-spectral imaging.
Key facts
- Location: Pompei and Herculaneum, Campania, Italy, with Herculaneum as a separate excavation site.
- Event: both cities were buried by the eruption of Vesuvius on 24 August 79 CE, Pompei under several metres of pumice and ash, Herculaneum under a much deeper layer of pyroclastic mud.
- UNESCO status: inscribed in 1997 as the Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata, reference 829.
- Signature discovery: the Thermopolium of Regio V, announced in 2020, the only Pompeian food counter found with both its painted menu and its food residues still in place.
- Key building: the Villa dei Misteri, just outside the Porta Ercolano, holding the megalographic fresco cycle of the Dionysiac initiation rite.
History
Pompei was founded by the Oscans, an Italic people, and passed through Samnite and Etruscan control before becoming a Roman ally after the Social War of 89 BCE. The eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed it is traditionally dated to 24 August 79 CE on the evidence of Pliny the Younger’s letters to Tacitus, though later excavations have raised the possibility of an autumn date, based on finds of seasonal fruit and the warm clothing worn by victims. Pliny the Elder, commanding the Roman fleet at Misenum, crossed the bay to help those trapped and died on the beach at Stabiae; his nephew recorded that his body was found intact, looking as if asleep.
The site lay forgotten until its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Systematic excavation began under Charles VII of Naples, later Charles III of Spain, who had bought the land a decade earlier; work at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum started shortly afterwards. Early finds went first to the royal palace at Portici and later to what became the Museo Nazionale di Napoli, whose Gabinetto Segreto still holds the erotic art recovered from the site, opened to the public in 2000. The archaeological areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.
What you see
Visitors to Pompei walk the Forum and the long stretch of the Via dell’Abbondanza, passing houses, shops and the painted counter of the Thermopolium of Regio V. The amphitheatre and the Lupanar, the city’s brothel, survive along with the Villa dei Misteri outside the Porta Ercolano, where the room of the great painting shows twelve scenes of a Dionysiac initiation rite on a deep red ground.
Herculaneum lies as a separate site some distance from Pompei. Its houses preserve wooden furniture and roof beams carbonised rather than burned by the pyroclastic surge, and the nearby Villa of the Papyri, not fully excavated, holds the only library to survive from antiquity, its scrolls now being read through imaging technology rather than direct handling.
Practical information
- Entrances: Pompei is generally entered from the Porta Marina; check the Parco Archeologico di Pompei’s official channels for current entry points, hours and tickets.
- Herculaneum: a separate excavation site; allow a distinct visit and consult the site’s own information for opening arrangements.
- Villa of the Papyri: not open to direct visits, but accessible through a virtual reality exhibit at the Herculaneum Conservation Project museum.
- Finds from the site: many objects, including the bread from the bakery of Modestus, are held at the Museo Nazionale di Napoli.
Getting there
Pompei and Herculaneum sit close to each other in Campania, with the Porta Marina entrance to Pompei given at coordinates 40.7506° N, 14.4874° E. Herculaneum lies some fifteen kilometres away as a separate site, and travellers are advised to check current transport and access details through the official archaeological park channels rather than rely on fixed timings.
Nearby
- Herculaneum — around fifteen kilometres away, a separate buried town with carbonised wood and papyrus scrolls.
- Villa dei Misteri — just outside Pompei’s Porta Ercolano, home to the Dionysiac fresco cycle.
- Museo Nazionale di Napoli — houses finds from both sites, including the Gabinetto Segreto’s erotic collection and the carbonised loaf from Modestus’s bakery.
Sources
- Parco Archeologico di Pompei
- Museo Nazionale di Napoli
- British Museum
- Pliny the Younger, Epistulae VI.16 and VI.20
- Herculaneum Conservation Project
- UNESCO
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