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We’ve been hearing about how Italy’s famous landmarks have been suffering under the strain of overtourism lately. As well as crowds being a nightmare for residents, it doesn’t exactly make for the most enjoyable travel experience for visitors either. After all, it’s hard to enjoy the view when you’re being poked in the eye by someone’s selfie stick...

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Pompeii's 'gladiator school' reopened Thursday after a three-year restoration following a collapse eight years ago. The director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, Massimo Osanna, on Thursday said "collapses in the archaeological digs of Pompeii are a closed chapter". The director of the ancient city, which was smothered in lava and ash by the...

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Archaeologists have unearthed the petrified remains of a harnessed horse and saddle in the stable of an ancient villa in a Pompeii suburb. Pompeii archaeological park head Massimo Osanna told Italian news agency ANSA that the villa belonged to a high-ranking military officer, perhaps a general, during ancient Roman times. Osanna was quoted on Sunda...

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Pompeii may have had a theatre already at the time of the arrival of the Samnites in the fourth century BC, Superintendent Massimo Osanna said Thursday after the discovery of a concave area next to the second-century BC theatre that was preserved by the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. The new digs at the famed archaeological site have "raised this hypo...

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Archaeologists have found a fresco in an ancient Pompeii bedroom that depicts a sensual scene of the Roman god Jupiter, disguised as a swan, and a legendary queen of Sparta from Greek mythology. The figure of Leda being impregnated by the god in swan form was a fairly common home decoration theme in Pompeii and Herculaneum, another town destroyed i...

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Italian news agency ANSA says new excavations in the ancient buried city of Pompeii have yielded the undisturbed skeletons of people who took refuge from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D.79. The director of the Pompeii archaeological site, Massimo Osanna, told ANSA on Wednesday the skeletons were still intact, having been left undisturbed desp...

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New excavations in the ancient buried city of Pompeii have yielded a truly historic find: a charcoal inscription apparently dating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius to October of A.D. 79, two months later than originally thought. Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli was on hand for the announcement Tuesday in Pompeii, where earlier this month archaeologi...

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A house with a room containing a 'lararium', a shrine dedicated to the Lares, protectors of the ancient Roman home, has been discovered in Pompeii and exclusively visited by ANSA. The room, which is incredibly well-preserved and has the largest lararium found to date in Pompeii, is an "enchanted garden", experts said. Its walls are painted with sna...

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The marble-clad surfaces of the numerous bars or shops (so-called thermopolium) of Pompeii and Herculaneum are a vast and hitherto untapped source of information about marble use beyond the confines of public building and elite houses. Since the 1800’s four field seasons of survey work have documented 49 bars at Pompeii and eight at Herculaneum, a...

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Officials at the Pompeii archeological site have announced a dramatic new discovery, the skeleton of a man crushed by an enormous stone while trying to flee the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Pompeii officials on Tuesday released a photograph showing the skeleton protruding from beneath a large block of stone that may have been a door jamb th...

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