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Amalfi · 2025

2025 Amalfi 2 - Pompei

A weathered fresco depicting a naval battle scene framed in red, with a lion head above.
A weathered ancient fresco on a red wall depicts a reclining woman surrounded by other figures in a faded landscape. A red-framed fresco painting depicts two ancient warships sailing on a blue sea. A painted figure with a dark headdress and wide eyes peeks over a green ledge against a striped wall. A red wall displays a painted scene of a nude man with a staff, a seated woman, and other figures. A painted fresco depicting two Roman galleys with oars on a blue sea, framed by red and gold borders. A weathered fresco on a yellow wall depicts a man kneeling while women surround and attack him. Interior view of a room with yellow walls adorned with detailed frescoes and a dark red lower border. Sunlit stone ruins featuring large, hourglass-shaped milling stones on circular platforms. A view through a dark passage into a sunlit ancient courtyard with a small shrine, greenery, and stone walls. A weathered Roman fresco featuring a central red panel with a painted mythological scene, flanked by yellow architectural borders. A sunlit stone courtyard with a small impluvium pool, a marble table, and a column, surrounded by ruined walls. A weathered stone floor features a white mosaic inscription reading SALVE LVCRV, with scattered white tesserae and red fragments. A weathered brick mausoleum with an arched entrance and a marble plaque stands beside a smaller brick structure and a glass-covered ruin. A stone and brick ruin with a modern pergola roof, columns, and a view down a sunken garden path. A weathered, damaged fresco depicting a procession of figures in muted colors on an old wall. Tourists walk along a paved stone road flanked by tall, weathered stone ruins under a blue sky. Weathered stone columns and crumbling walls stand in an overgrown courtyard with a mountain backdrop. Tourists stand on a stone street beside a weathered wall featuring a faded red painted inscription under a small roof. View through a stone doorway of ancient ruins with a grassy courtyard and brick accents. A view of an ancient stone ruin with a marble counter in the foreground, grassy courtyard, and a blue sky above. An ancient stone counter with a colorful mosaic of marble pieces and embedded circular basins sits in a ruined stone building. Stone counter with embedded clay jars in an ancient ruined building with a painted fresco on the wall. A weathered ancient fresco depicting five figures and a large serpent painted on a wall above a stone basin. A ruined stone courtyard with a marble table over a small basin, surrounded by crumbling walls and grass. A close-up of a weathered stone wall with an embedded terracotta pipe, a brick pillar, and a small sign with the number 4. A weathered stone room features a marble table on a fluted pedestal, a large basket, and a doorway leading to a dark corridor. A weathered mosaic floor depicting a wolf and geometric patterns lies between rough stone walls. A sunlit corridor with a detailed mosaic floor and a central basin leads to a garden with columns and a staircase. A weathered stone building features a dark wooden overhang sheltering four damaged fresco panels depicting classical figures against a yellow background. A view through a stone doorway into a sunlit courtyard with large terracotta pots and ruined walls. A crowd of tourists walks along a stone-paved street flanked by tall, ruined stone walls under a clear blue sky. A woman with a backpack stands before a metal gate, looking at a courtyard with tall stone columns. A view of extensive stone ruins with a couple walking between the walls, set against a backdrop of trees and distant mountains. Weathered stone columns and a ruined wall stand in an archaeological site with a modern white building visible in the distance. A patch of sunlight illuminates a colorful geometric mosaic floor set within rough stone walls. A wide, paved ancient Roman street lined with ruined brick buildings and columns, crowded with tourists walking under a bright blue sky. Interior view of an ancient stone archway with a vaulted ceiling covered in faded geometric frescoes and circular medallions. A weathered stone surface featuring a grid of octagonal panels with carved figures and geometric patterns, crossed by large cracks. A group of tourists stands inside a dimly lit ancient stone room with a vaulted ceiling covered in faded frescoes and a circular skylight. Foreground stone ruins sit below a modern building and a church with a green dome and bell tower, framed by umbrella pines. Weathered stone walls of ancient ruins sit beneath a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds and a distant mountain. A paved stone road runs between high, weathered stone walls under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds. A rectangular mosaic floor featuring a central animal figure surrounded by geometric borders, framed by stone walls. A view through a stone doorway of ancient ruins with a roped-off excavated area, overlooking a valley and distant mountains. A dark mosaic on a light stone floor depicts two figures in combat, set within a ruined room with faded red walls. A room with faded, colorful frescoes on its walls, sheltered by a modern corrugated roof. Tourists walk along a paved ancient Roman street flanked by ruined stone buildings, with a large mountain in the background. A person lies down on a stone ledge inside an ancient Roman ruin, with a hat covering their face. A rectangular section of an ancient mosaic floor with geometric patterns is illuminated by a shaft of sunlight, surrounded by deep shadows and a brick wall. A large, geometric mosaic floor is partially illuminated by sunlight inside an ancient stone and brick ruin. A weathered geometric mosaic with a central floral design lies on the ground between rough stone walls. Tourists walk among the ruins of a stone colonnade with a large mountain in the background. Tourists walk among stone and brick columns in an ancient Roman forum, with a large mountain visible in the distance under a blue sky with clouds. Tourists walk among the towering stone columns and brick ruins of an ancient Roman site under a clear blue sky. Tall stone columns stand among the ruins of an ancient city, with a mountain in the distance under a blue sky with clouds. A verdigris bronze statue of a youth stands on a pedestal before ancient stone walls and a fluted column. Rough stone walls of an ancient ruin stand under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds and patches of green grass. Weathered stone walls of an ancient ruin stand amid grass under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds. A rectangular stone block features a bas-relief carving of a winged creature with a bird's head and a circular hole near its base. A close-up of an ancient mosaic floor featuring intricate floral and vine patterns in black and white tesserae, partially covered by a sharp diagonal shadow. A colonnade of three brick columns stands in an ancient stone plaza, with tourists walking around and mountains in the background. A weathered stone basin with an inscribed rim sits on a pedestal against a mottled, peeling wall. Interior view of a vaulted stone room with faded frescoes, a small window, and a row of statues below. A row of weathered stone statues lines a ledge, while tourists with a map stand in a sunlit, arched interior space. A close-up of carved stone feet on a ledge in the foreground, with blurred tourists walking in the background. A low-angle view of weathered stone columns supporting a vaulted ceiling with faded frescoes and a bright window. Aerial view of a textured, rocky hillside where erosion patterns form the distinct shape of a human face. Curved stone walls with faded frescoes and arched niches surround a sunken circular pool. A weathered stone counter with marble slabs and circular openings stands among ancient ruins. A close-up view of a stone pavement featuring a decorative mosaic border with wave patterns and a metal pole base. A paved stone road runs through ancient brick ruins with a white marble counter and distant mountains under a blue sky. A wide, uneven cobblestone road flanked by raised stone curbs, with a shadow cast across the foreground. Sunlit ruins of an ancient stone structure featuring a low wall topped with a white mosaic surface, surrounded by rough stone walls and patches of green grass. Tourists walk along a paved ancient street lined with ruined brick walls, leading to a large archway with mountains in the background. A painted aedicula shrine set into a yellow wall, featuring two figures flanking a central one above a large serpent. A weathered ancient wall featuring a central painted mythological scene flanked by decorative architectural panels. A weathered wall displays a framed fresco of a seated figure with a deer, surrounded by painted decorations. A weathered ancient fresco depicting a seated figure holding a staff, framed by painted columns and garlands. A weathered ancient fresco depicting painted architectural panels, a central winged figure, a bird, and hanging ornaments on a pale blue wall. A painted fresco on a yellow wall depicts a mythological scene with a seated man, a woman, a child, and a figure in profile. A covered walkway with fluted columns overlooks a sunlit garden courtyard with a palm tree in the background. Interior of an ancient room with yellow walls, a central mythological fresco, and painted architectural scenes. A rusty pipe lies on a textured stone surface with peeling red and white paint. A rectangular white marble basin on two pedestals sits in a sunlit garden with blue-green plants and a stone path. A vibrant ancient Roman fresco featuring red and black panels with painted figures, architectural elements, and mythological scenes. A detailed ancient fresco featuring a black frieze with cupids engaged in various activities, framed by red painted panels with delicate floral designs. A room with vibrant red walls adorned with ancient frescoes, showing figures, a frieze, and a large damaged section revealing rough plaster. A red wall painting showing a frieze of cupids engaged in various activities against a black band. A view of an ancient Roman peristyle garden with a central planted area, surrounded by fluted columns and a covered walkway. A weathered fresco on a plaster wall depicts two nude figures, a woman and a man, reclining on a bed. A weathered, greenish metal pipe with a rusty bracket is mounted on a rough, sandy-colored stone wall. A weathered fresco of a robed figure with a basket of fruit is mounted on a dark wall beside a doorway.
Journal Notes

General

The ancient city of Pompeii lies on the southern flank of Mount Vesuvius, in the modern municipality of Pompei in the metropolitan city of Naples, Campania. The Roman town was built on a coastal lava plateau, about 30 m above sea level, created by eruptions of the volcano in earlier prehistory; the plateau fell steeply toward the sea to the south and west. Once adjoining the shoreline and the navigable mouth of the Sarno River, the site now lies roughly two kilometres inland, the coastline having prograded since antiquity. The walled city enclosed an area of about 66 hectares and, at the time of its destruction, was home to an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. Recent demographic reconstructions based on household counts suggest a figure closer to 11,500.

In AD 79, Pompeii was buried under several metres of volcanic ash and pumice during the eruption of Vesuvius. Because the city was sealed rapidly and then abandoned, it survived as an archaeological record of extraordinary completeness: streets, public buildings, private houses, workshops, wall paintings, inscriptions and organic materials were preserved in the volcanic deposits, providing a uniquely detailed picture of daily life in a Roman town of the early empire. The site attracts on the order of 2.5 million visitors a year and is protected as part of the UNESCO World Heritage property “Archaeological Areas of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata”, inscribed in 1997 under criteria (iii), (iv) and (v) and described by UNESCO as the only archaeological site in the world that provides a complete picture of an ancient Roman city.

Climatically the site belongs to the Mediterranean zone (Csa after Köppen), with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. The volcanic soils of the Sarno plain are exceptionally fertile, and agriculture (vines, olives and fruit) surrounded the city in antiquity as it does today. Administratively, the archaeological area is managed as the Parco Archeologico di Pompei, which since 2018 has resumed targeted excavations in previously unexplored sectors of the city, complementing the long history of research that began with the first systematic campaigns of the eighteenth century.

History

The earliest stable occupation of the site dates to the eighth century BC, when Oscan peoples of central Italy established a group of villages on the lava plateau. From about 740 BC, Greek settlement in Campania brought Pompeii into the orbit of the Hellenic world; the Doric temple of the later Triangular Forum and the early cult of Apollo belong to this phase, and Greek and Phoenician seafarers used the nearby river mouth as a haven. In the early sixth century BC the scattered settlements merged into a single community at the crossroads between Cumae, Nola and Stabiae, enclosed by a circuit of tufa walls that already marked the town as a place of some wealth. Etruscan influence followed during the sixth and fifth centuries, exercised through trade along the Sarno rather than military conquest; thereafter the town passed into the Samnite sphere and shared in the conflicts between Rome and the Samnite peoples during the fourth century BC. The monumental public architecture of the second century BC (the forum, the basilica and the large private houses of the period) reflects the Hellenised tastes of the Samnite elite that governed the city before the Roman conquest.

After the Social War, in which Pompeii sided against Rome, the city was besieged by Sulla and in about 80 BC was refounded as the Roman colony of Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum, with veterans settled among the existing population. Under Roman rule the city prospered from the fertility of its hinterland and from trade: wine, oil and the fish sauce garum were produced and exported, and the urban economy supported a dense network of workshops, shops, taverns and services. The public buildings of the forum and the entertainment district were enlarged, and in about 70 BC the amphitheatre (the earliest surviving stone amphitheatre of the Roman world) was built in the south-eastern corner of the city.

At its destruction Pompeii was a thriving municipium of the early empire with a heterogeneous population of Romans, descendants of the Samnite elite, freedmen and slaves. Its houses were decorated in the successive systems of wall painting (the four Pompeian styles first systematised by August Mau) and its streets carried the wheeled traffic, the shops and the election notices documented in thousands of surviving inscriptions and graffiti, the latter a rich source for the colloquial Latin of the period.

On 5 February AD 62 a severe earthquake, estimated at magnitude 5 to 6, damaged much of the city; the damage was still being repaired seventeen years later, and the rebuilding itself introduced new architecture, such as the Central Baths, with innovations in heating and glazing. The emperor Nero visited the region around AD 64. The city was flourishing again when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.

The eruption, traditionally dated to 24 August AD 79 although some recent epigraphic and botanical evidence suggests a later date in the autumn, destroyed the city in two days and buried it under several metres of tephra; the only surviving eyewitness account is that of Pliny the Younger, whose letters to Tacitus also record the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, at Stabiae during a rescue attempt. After the burial the site was sporadically quarried and even reoccupied on a small scale, then forgotten; it was rediscovered in 1592, when the architect Domenico Fontana cut an aqueduct through the buried remains, and systematic excavation began in 1748 under the Bourbon king Charles III. The modern archaeology of the site was shaped by Giuseppe Fiorelli, who in the 1860s introduced the system of regional subdivision still in use and developed the technique of plaster casts of the voids left by decomposed bodies. Since the later twentieth century, excavation policy has favoured conservation over further clearance, although targeted campaigns continue to the present day.

Geology

Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano on the northern shore of the Bay of Naples and the only active volcano on the mainland of Europe. It forms part of the Campanian volcanic arc, produced by the subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate; the same volcanic province includes the Campi Flegrei caldera to the north-west and the island of Ischia. The modern cone, about 1,281 m high, rises inside the older caldera rim of Monte Somma, the remnant of a larger predecessor volcano whose summit collapsed in antiquity. Pompeii lies on the lower southern flank of this edifice, some ten kilometres from the present summit.

The site itself is underlain by the lava plateau on which the city was founded, the product of effusive eruptions older than the first settlement, with the bedrock locally mantled by landslide and alluvial sediments. The steep fall of the plateau toward the sea and the proximity of the Sarno river mouth determined both the defensibility and the commercial function of the town. The young volcanic soils of the plain are among the most fertile in Italy, sustaining the intensive agriculture that underwrote Pompeian prosperity.

The eruption of AD 79 is the type example of a Plinian eruption, named after Pliny the Younger, whose letters provide the historical record. In the early afternoon of the first day the volcano produced a sustained, high-altitude eruption column, and pumice and ash began to fall over Pompeii and the surrounding plain; the fallout accumulated over many hours, collapsing roofs and gradually burying the city under roughly two to three metres of pumice and ash before further deposits raised the total cover to several metres. During the night the eruption column began to collapse, generating the first pyroclastic flows and surges, and in the early morning of the second day a series of dense, fast-moving pyroclastic currents swept over the city, knocking down walls and killing most of the inhabitants who had survived the fallout phase, largely by heat and asphyxiation.

The deposits of the eruption mantle the region as a distinctive stratigraphic marker: at Pompeii the sequence comprises the white and grey pumice fallout of the Plinian phase, overlain by the thin, fine-grained surge and flow deposits of the final phase. The fine ash of the last surges sealed the city in an anaerobic environment, preserving wall paintings, wooden objects, textiles and foodstuffs, while the decay of organic matter in the ash left voids that could later be cast in plaster, the basis of the famous body casts and of much of the site’s exceptional state of preservation.

After AD 79 the volcano remained active, with major eruptions recorded in 472 and 512 that buried the ruins more deeply, and repeatedly thereafter: the eruptions of 1631 and 1944 are among the most recent significant events. The archaeological site therefore lies beneath a superimposed stack of historical tephra, and the modern town of Pompei is built on the deposits of successive eruptions. In the long term, the Sarno plain has been shaped by the interaction of volcanic construction, tectonic subsidence of the Campanian basin and the sedimentary progradation of the coastline since antiquity.

The present-day volcanic hazard of the Vesuvius area is among the highest in Europe: more than half a million people live in the officially delimited red zone around the volcano, and the eruption of AD 79 serves as the reference scenario for civil-protection planning. For the archaeological park itself, the principal conservation challenge is not the volcano but the progressive weathering of exposed structures, wall paintings and organic materials after two centuries of excavation, which has driven the modern shift from clearance toward conservation and site management.

Things to See

The civic and religious heart of Pompeii is the forum, a long open square flanked by the Capitolium temple of Jupiter, the basilica, the macellum market building and the public administrative offices; the paving, columns and pedestals of the square still show the damage of the AD 62 earthquake. From the forum, the Via dell’Abbondanza, the principal east-west thoroughfare, runs through the commercial districts past shops, workshops, taverns and the thermopolia, the snack bars with their masonry counters and embedded dolia that are among the most evocative survivals of everyday Roman commerce.

The entertainment quarter in the south-east includes the amphitheatre of about 70 BC, the earliest surviving stone amphitheatre, with its adjacent palaestra, together with the two theatres (the large theatre and the covered odeon) near the Triangular Forum. The public baths of the city, above all the Stabian Baths, the oldest in Pompeii, display the standard sequence of apodyterium, frigidarium, tepidarium and caldarium with their heating systems and vaulted interiors.

The private houses of the excavated city are among its greatest treasures. The House of the Faun, one of the largest dwellings, takes its name from the bronze statue in the impluvium and contained the Alexander Mosaic, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples; the House of the Vettii preserves complete ensembles of Fourth Style wall painting; and the Villa of the Mysteries, just outside the city walls, is famous for its cycle of large frescoes depicting the initiation rites of the cult of Dionysus. The lupanar and numerous smaller establishments document the social history of the town, while the Garden of the Fugitives displays plaster casts of victims in the positions in which they died.

The circuit of walls and gates (among them the Porta Marina and the Porta Ercolano) and the cemeteries lining the roads outside the gates complete the picture of the ancient city. Beyond the excavations, the modern Antiquarium houses finds from the site, and the most celebrated portable objects, including frescoes, mosaics and silver, are displayed in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The site as a whole is best experienced along the raised walkways of the excavated streets, with Vesuvius dominating the horizon to the north.

References

  1. Beard, M. (2008). The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  2. Berry, J. (2007). The Complete Pompeii. London: Thames & Hudson.
  3. Cooley, A. E. & Cooley, M. G. L. (2014). Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
  4. Pliny the Younger. Letters 6.16 and 6.20 (to Tacitus).
  5. Sigurdsson, H., Cashdollar, S. & Sparks, R. S. J. (1982). The Eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79: Reconstruction from Historical and Volcanological Evidence. American Journal of Archaeology 86(1), 39-51.
  6. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1997). Archaeological Areas of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata. World Heritage List, ref. 829. whc.unesco.org/en/list/829
  7. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1994). Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  8. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Pompeii. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
  9. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79_AD
  10. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Mount Vesuvius. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vesuvius
  11. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Pliny the Younger. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger
  12. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Amphitheatre of Pompeii. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_Pompeii
  13. Wikipedia contributors (2026). House of the Faun. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Faun
  14. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Villa of the Mysteries. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Mysteries
  15. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Lupanar (Pompeii). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupanar_(Pompeii)