Pompeii

The archaeological site of the Roman town of Pompeii is located in Campania, Southern Italy, 8 km southeast of the apex of Mount Vesuvius. Pompeii as well as the nearby towns of Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis were destroyed and buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. In 1997, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Torre Annunziata were declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO because they “provide a complete and vivid picture of society and daily life at a specific moment in the past that is without parallel anywhere in the world” (UNESCO 2019).

In ancient times Pompeii was situated on a low hill at the mouth of the Sarno River, about nine kilometers south of Mount Vesuvius. Both the river port and the shallow bay to the south were filled in by volcanic deposits during the 79 CE eruption which pushed the coastline outwards by more than 1 km. This was a total disaster for the inhabitants, but they have not been forgotten, because the 4-m-thick layer of volcanic debris preserved the city and most of its material goods.