Pompeii — Pompeii
Pompeii Glen Scarborough from The Central Coast, Australia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Site · Italy

Pompeii

Roman, 600 BCE–79 CE

Pompeii is the Roman town buried by Vesuvius in 79 CE and excavated continuously since the eighteenth century, preserving streets, houses and public buildings as they stood. It is the most complete picture of an ancient city anywhere.

CountryItaly
State / provinceCampania
Dates600 BCE–79 CE
StatusArchaeological park and UNESCO World Heritage Site
Managed byParco Archeologico di Pompei, Ministero della Cultura
AccessOpen to the public with houses, forum, amphitheatre and villas
Coordinates40.751, 14.487 (public site)

What was found

Excavations since 1748 have recovered frescoes, mosaics, bronze statuary, silver services, carbonised food, surgical instruments, graffiti, lamps, amphorae, coins and the plaster casts of victims of the eruption of 79 CE. Most portable finds are in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Rules

Nothing may be collected, dug, moved or removed at Pompeii; it is a protected archaeological site managed by Parco Archeologico di Pompei, Ministero della Cultura, and taking artifacts, stones or samples is an offence. Italian law vests all archaeological finds in the state, and removal or export is a crime. Visitors removing even a fragment of plaster or mosaic are prosecuted. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Strata. "Pompeii" (Site). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/sites/pompeii. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-pompeii,
  title        = {Pompeii},
  author       = {{Stratum Strata}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/sites/pompeii}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Site article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikidata (CC0);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-21; Strata pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id site:pompeii.

Stratum is the inventory, provenance and certificate system for fossil, mineral and shell collections. Strata is its open reference: every fact cites its source, and the credits page lists each one with its licence.