Herculaneum

Herculaneum is in Italy, near the big city of Naples.

It was a small town where Roman people lived about 2,000 years ago. Today a new town, Ercolano, is built right above part of it.

Herculaneum lies beside the Bay of Naples, in southern Italy, at the foot of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. It was a small Roman town, only 320 meters by 370 meters inside its walls. Unlike commercial Pompeii nearby, it was a holiday resort for rich Romans, with fine views of the sea.

Today the ancient town lies in a deep hollow below the streets of the modern town of Ercolano. Much of it is still buried under the modern buildings. Together with Pompeii and the Roman villas at Torre Annunziata, it is a World Heritage Site.

Herculaneum stood on a promontory overlooking the Bay of Naples. ICOMOS describes it as a much smaller town than Pompeii, 320 by 370 m within its walls, laid out on a regular 'Hippodamian' grid at the end of the 1st century BC, with a wide main street that also served as the forum. It had been under Roman rule since 89 BC, and it was a holiday resort for wealthy Romans, where Pompeii was a commercial town.

UNESCO inscribed the 'Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata' in 1997 under criteria (iii), (iv) and (v). It notes that large areas of the ancient town, including its theater, still lie under modern Ercolano, known only through 18th-century tunnels; UNESCO's records list minor changes to the property's boundaries in 2023 and 2026.

In the town are houses, shops and bathhouses.

Some shops still have their giant jars for wine. Down at the bottom are big stone arches where the beach used to be.

Visitors can walk along Herculaneum's paved streets past houses, shops and public buildings. There is a large sports ground, called a palaestra, with a grand gateway, and two sets of public baths, one of them richly decorated. Some shops still hold their equipment, such as enormous wine jars.

In the photo, a row of stone arches runs along the bottom of the town, by what was once the ancient coastline. Above them rise the walls and houses of the old town, and behind, the buildings of modern Ercolano and the slopes of Vesuvius.

UNESCO lists a spacious palaestra entered through a monumental gateway, two sets of public baths (the Central Thermae monumental and vividly decorated) and a theater of standard form, still reached only through the 18th-century tunnels. ICOMOS singles out the House of the Bicentenary, named because it was excavated two hundred years after work first began, and the seafront houses such as the House of the Deer, with large courtyards and rich decoration. Shops survive complete, with equipment such as enormous wine jars.

The arches at the foot of the excavated town stand by the ancient coastline; in July 2026 the park reopened the Martusciello Gallery, a route that brings visitors closer to the arches and the ancient beach. In the 20th century Herculaneum was presented as an 'open-air museum', perhaps Europe's first, in UNESCO's words.

Today, Herculaneum is a park where visitors explore.

Mount Vesuvius still stands nearby. Scientists and workers look after the old town.

Today Herculaneum is an archaeological park run by Italy's Ministry of Culture. Visitors walk down into the ancient town, past houses and shops, and look up at the high walls of the excavation, cut through the volcanic deposits that once covered it.

Keeping it safe is hard work. In 1997, experts reported that rain, wind, damp and the high water level under the site were wearing away the old buildings, and that an earthquake in 1980 had made some problems worse.

The site is managed as the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum under Italy's Ministry of Culture. ICOMOS, in its 1997 evaluation, described serious structural problems at both Herculaneum and Pompeii from inappropriate materials, rising damp, and rain and wind, worsened by the 1980 earthquake, and at Herculaneum the high water table. It also praised the placing of copies and casts of paintings and sculptures, now in the Naples museum, back where they were found, as in the House of the Deer.

The photo shows the excavated town in its hollow, the arches by the ancient shore, a stairway and terraces, modern Ercolano above and Vesuvius on the skyline.