Archaeological Sites of Campania Guide

Pompeii receives 3.5 million visitors per year and has become, in parts of the site, more the experience of a crowded theme park than of a Roman city. The archaeological zone that surrounds Pompeii — the Vesuvian area, the Bay of Naples, and the Campanian coast — contains at least six other sites of equivalent or greater archaeological interest and a small fraction of the visitor numbers. The volcanic eruption of 79 AD buried not only Pompeii but the entire northern flank of the Bay of Naples; each buried site preserves a different aspect of Roman life, a different social class, or a different building type. Together they constitute the most complete archaeological documentation of first-century AD Roman civilization anywhere in the world.

The Essential Campania Archaeological Sites

Herculaneum (Ercolano)

Herculaneum, 12 km from Naples, was buried under a pyroclastic surge (not the ash fall that covered Pompeii) that carbonized organic materials rather than simply burying them under pumice. The consequence: Herculaneum preserves wooden furniture, doors, staircases, roof structures, and foodstuffs that Pompeii cannot provide. The site is smaller (only approximately 20% of the ancient city has been excavated — the rest lies under the modern town of Ercolano) but significantly more intense in quality: the Villa of the Papyri library, the wall paintings of the College of the Augustales, the wooden cradle in the Casa del Atrio a Mosaico. Open 9am-7pm; approximately €11; no pre-booking required (visitor numbers are naturally lower than Pompeii).

Paestum: Three Greek Temples Intact

Paestum (ancient Poseidonia, 100 km south of Naples) has three Doric temples that are the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere outside of Sicily and Greece itself — the Temple of Hera I (c. 550 BC, the oldest), the Temple of Hera II (c. 460 BC, often called the Temple of Neptune), and the Temple of Ceres (c. 500 BC, actually dedicated to Athena). The temples stand in an open field with the mountains behind and the Tyrrhenian Sea visible to the west; the specific quality of the golden travertine stone catching the late afternoon light is one of the most beautiful architectural experiences available in Italy. The adjacent Paestum Museum has the Tomb of the Diver (480 BC) — the only surviving example of Greek figurative painting on stone from the classical period, of extraordinary delicacy.

Cuma: The First Greek Colony in Italy

Cuma (Cumae), north of Naples on the Phlegrean Fields coast, was the first Greek colony on the Italian mainland, established approximately 740 BC. The acropolis with its temples, the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl (the most important oracle in the Roman world — Aeneas consults the Sibyl before descending to the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid), and the Roman forum and amphitheatre below the acropolis cover 2,000 years of continuous occupation. The Sibyl's cave — a 131-meter tunnel cut through the volcanic tufa of the acropolis, with trapezoidal cross-section and lateral chambers that let in the specific quality of diffuse light — is one of the most atmospheric ancient spaces in Italy.

Q&A: Campania Archaeological Sites

Should I skip Pompeii and visit Herculaneum instead?

Not "instead" but "in addition to" or "instead of a second Pompeii visit." Herculaneum and Pompeii complement each other and are genuinely different experiences: Pompeii shows the scale and urban completeness of a Roman city; Herculaneum shows the intimate detail of Roman domestic life — the wooden furniture, the food in the carbonized jars, the specific quality of a preserved Roman upper-middle-class house — that Pompeii cannot provide. If time allows only one: Herculaneum gives a more intense experience per hour of visit.

Internal Links

• Oplontis: Nero's Wife's Villa
• MANN Naples: The Objects From All These Sites
• Vesuvius Wine: Drinking on the Volcano's Slopes
• Naples as Base for the Archaeological Circuit
• Circumvesuviana Train: Getting to Herculaneum and Pompeii
• Sicily Archaeology: Comparing the Two Southern Circuits
• Phlegrean Fields: Thermal Waters Near Cuma