A City Perfectly Preserved

When excavations began in 1748, archaeologists found something no other Roman site offered: organic material that should have rotted away centuries earlier.

• Wine jugs with residue — enough to analyze what Romans actually drank
• A dog still chained — its cast captures it twisting to escape
• Wooden furniture and doors — carbonized but intact

The ash starved these materials of oxygen, halting decay. The result is the most complete picture of daily Roman life ever uncovered — a city stopped, quite literally, mid-step.