The plaster casts of Pompeii
The first permanent exhibition of the plaster casts of Pompeii has opened at the Archaeological Park.
Campania
Surviving Rome: the economic lives of the ninety percent
Sometime in the 1st century AD, a crass graffiti artist carved a 2m-long graffito into the wall of a stairwell within the House of Julia Felix at Pompeii. The mudslinger didn’t mince words. In it, they mocked a man who…
Sacrificial scents
Analysis of two votive offering vessels from Pompeii is enhancing our understanding of Roman domestic rituals.
Picturing Pompeii
A 19th-century photograph sheds light on a forgotten part of Pompeii, as Janice Kinory describes.
The Diver of Paestum: Youth, Eros, and the Sea in Ancient Greece
On 3 June 1968, Italian archaeologists digging the ancient city of Paestum made an extraordinary discovery. They had unearthed a tomb fashioned from slabs of travertine, containing the bones of an individual who had been lain to rest c.480 BC,…
Exploring ancient graffiti
The walls of Pompeii are littered with messages left behind by the city’s inhabitants two millennia ago. Recent research is shedding new light on one of the richest concentrations of these ancient inscriptions.
CA at Paestum
CA at Paestum The 27th annual Mediterranean Exchange for Archaeological Tourism met at Paestum, Italy, at the end of October and start of November to celebrate archaeological and cultural heritage. Together with archaeologists, heritage managers, and tourism professionals, CA visited…
The Last Days of Pompeii: the immersive exhibition
A new exhibition in London uses cutting-edge technology to recreate the streets of Pompeii – and the explosive events that turned a thriving Roman settlement into an archaeological time capsule. Carly Hilts describes the experience.
Being a woman in ancient Pompeii
An exhibition at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii explores what life was like for Roman women.
Gladiators: Heroes of the Colosseum and Gladiators of Britain
Exhibitions currently running at the Royal Armouries in Leeds and at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery focus on ancient Rome’s famous arena fighters, separating fact from fiction and exploring the latest archaeological research. Carly Hilts visited both to learn more.
Herculaneum Scrolls: title revealed
For the first time, non-invasive technology has been used to recover a title from the ancient papyri from Herculaneum carbonised in the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Earlier this year, scans of the scroll in question, known as PHerc.172,…
World News
Dionysian frieze discovered in Pompeii Ongoing excavations of a grand domus in Pompeii’s Insula 10, Regio IX, have revealed a series of spectacular finds, including a dining room decorated with scenes from the Trojan War (CA 412), a lararium or…
Rare Dionysian frieze in Pompeii
In recent months, excavations in Pompeii’s Insula 10, Regio IX, have uncovered several sections of a grand domus, including a black-walled dining room decorated with scenes from the Trojan War (CWA 125), a lararium or household shrine room (CWA 126),…
Egyptian ginger cats: Honorary Soldiers of Rome
W Benson Harer Jr says we should thank the Roman legionaries for our ginger feline friends.
Private baths at Pompeii
Ongoing excavations in Insula 10, Regio IX, at Pompeii have uncovered a luxurious private bathhouse, one of the biggest ever found in a domestic context in the ancient city. The thermal complex is the latest remarkable discovery inside the grand…
Reading a new Herculaneum scroll
Another advance has been made in the efforts to decipher a collection of ancient papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum that were burnt during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Remarkable progress has been made in recent years thanks to…
Reading the Herculaneum Scrolls: Secrets from the only surviving Classical library
Thanks to an ingenious digital technique, a particle accelerator, and an internet competition, we stand on the threshold of being able to enjoy what is potentially the greatest influx of ‘new’ Classical texts since the Renaissance. Brent Seales told Matthew Symonds why scrolls that were once widely believed impossible to read are now on the verge of becoming legible.
Petite but picture perfect
A small, ornately decorated house has been uncovered in Pompeii during ongoing excavations of the Insula of the Chaste Lovers, in the centre of the ancient city. Archaeological investigations of this newly discovered residence are still under way, but it…
Current World Archaeology 126
• Pompeii: the biggest dig in a generation
• AI and archaeology: reconstructing ancient landscapes
• Creatures of the Nile: what animals did for ancient Egypt
• Seeking Bluetooth’s kingdom: a journey through Viking Denmark
• Ghana: digging Christiansborg Castle
• South America: monumental rock art
Pompeii: The biggest dig in a generation
The biggest dig at Pompeii in a generation is working to expose nearly an entire block of the ancient city. Archaeologists are making astonishing discoveries that shed powerful new light on life and death in the shadow of Vesuvius, as Giuseppe Scarpati and Sophie Hay told Matthew Symonds.
World news
Stunning painted banquet hall uncovered in Pompeii A banquet hall boasting some of the finest frescoes found in Pompeii has recently been uncovered by archaeologists working in Regio IX. The Third Style wall paintings depict particular imagery from the Trojan…
The other Pompeii: Common lives in the shadow of Vesuvius
An exhibition at Pompeii explores the less glamorous side of life in the ancient city.
Fabulous frescoes at Pompeii
Archaeologists working at Pompeii have uncovered a spectacular banquet hall decorated with mythological images connected to the Trojan War. This luxurious space, once used for feasting and entertaining, was part of a grand private residence located in Insula 10 of…
Warriors of Rome: From soldiers to citizens in service of the Empire
Rome’s military is renowned as one of the finest fighting forces of the ancient world. But what was life really like for the individuals who became career soldiers, and how much do we know about the tools of their trade? Richard Abdy told Matthew Symonds about the people who fought for Rome.
World news: From rare tomb in Naples to baboons in ancient Egypt
Rare tomb found in Naples A rare underground funerary chamber was recently found during excavations in advance of the laying of a water pipeline in northern Naples, Italy. Measuring 3m by 4m, the walls of the chamber are completely covered…
The Tomb of Cerberus: a newly unearthed treasure
An exceptional discovery has been made during the laying of a water pipeline in northern Naples, in Giugliano, an area that has never before yielded this type of find. The archaeological excavations, requested by the Superintendency for the Metropolitan Area…
Reading the Herculaneum scrolls
Efforts to decipher the Herculaneum scrolls have reached an important turning point. The collection of over one thousand papyrus scrolls, carbonised during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, was discovered in 1752 in what is now known as…
World news in brief: Bronze sword from Bavaria, AI identifies new Nasca lines and new human remains found in Pompeii
A round-up of some of the latest archaeological discoveries from across the globe.
World News
More still to uncover at Pompeii While investigations at Pompeii have been ongoing for centuries, much of the site remains unexplored, and new excavations have recently begun in one such previously unexamined section. This new project aims to uncover an…
New archaeological work begins at Pompeii
The excavations are only in their early stages, but already signs of the upper parts of ancient buildings are beginning to emerge.
Wooden wonders of Herculaneum
An astonishing array of wooden objects has survived from Herculaneum, carbonised by the volcanic eruption that destroyed the town. This invaluable material may be less showy than the celebrated marble and bronze statuary, but it was still used for everything from beams and boats to purses and small shrines, as Dalu Jones finds out.
New Light from Pompeii: exhibition explores artificial light in the Roman world
Among the artefacts on display are 180 original bronze objects from the Naples National Archaeological Museum and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
Museum openings and reopenings around the world
The Manchester Museum, Bengaluru's new art gallery, and the House of the Vettii in Pompeii open to the public.
Seasons and the city
Even reputable observers like Pliny the Younger often ended up at the mercy of the competence of later scribes. As his writings only survive as copies, it may be no more than a scribal slip of the hand that immortalised August as the month when Pompeii met its fate.
This week: Roman frescoes
Over the past few centuries of European history, we have grown used to the notion of the artist as celebrity. As far back as the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo and Michelangelo were famous in their own lifetimes. More recently, we can…
Pompeii Quiz
In which year was Pompeii buried under pumice and ash following the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius?