Pompeii (Naples), the Temple of Hercules was found in the excavations of Civita Giuliana

In the Civita Giuliana area, north of the ancient city of Pompeii, already at the beginning of the twentieth century a large residence called Villa Imperiali had been identified. Starting in 2017 and then in 2019 thanks to a memorandum of understanding signed with the Public Prosecutor's Office of Torre Annunziata, the Archaeological Park of Pompeii has started excavation campaigns and have allowed us to stop the systematic looting that has affected the villa for years and have yielded new data and exceptional findings.

The investigations of 2023-'24 they concentrated along the stretch of the current Via di Civita Giuliana doing research for the first time an area interposed between the two already known sectors, the residential one to the north and the servient neighborhood to the south, in order to verify the reliability of the information recovered from the judicial investigations conducted by the Torre Annunziata Prosecutor's Office.

Among the important discoveries that have affected the villa, of which the last one is the carpenters' room, a chapel also emerges, environment dedicated to religious worship, located at a hinge point between the service sector (with stables and the slave room) to the south and the residential complex to the north of the villa.

The removal of the road, started in August 2023, brought to light- immediately below the preparatory layers of the modern way, between 40 and 50 cm depth from the current road level - floors belonging to the upper floor of the service area as well as the chapel with a reed vault with a rectangular plan, of which some examples are known attached to the villas of the Pompeian suburb, although not with the same monumentality.

The shrine appears to correspond to what was found by the investigators during of investigations, in which references to a "temple" emerge entitled to Hercules, and ad frescoes depicting the 12 labors of Hercules, of which however there are no traces at the moment.

The environment is covered with a single-pitch sloping roof, while the external front, completely plastered and painted white, has a large portal (2.65 x 2.75 m) and is surmounted by a sort of "tympanum" in relief.

In front of the huge door there is a ramp with traces of wheels, indication of the possible use of a ceremonial chariot during rituals.

Internally the environment is characterized by a 4th style pictorial wall decoration: the decorative cycle included a sequence of twelve yellow drape panels on a red background, while in the center of the back wall two panels that framed a masonry podium, probably a support for a statue.

Not far away, a continuous platform runs along the walls, in masonry covered with painted plaster, of which the wear caused by use over time is evident, by the participants in the rituals.

"The entire area of ​​the Pompeii Archaeological Park is a treasure chest that every day reveals new stories and new identities to the whole world - said the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, at the end of the inspection carried out yesterday at the suburban Villa of Civita Giuliana - The government financed new excavations with the latest Budget Law and, as also confirmed by the Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel, in the Pompeii Park there were not so many excavations and so many activities for the discovery of new finds since the 1950s. It is something wonderful that can also constitute a great opportunity for socio-economic development for this entire area. Therefore it is necessary to continue to focus on the culture and value of the experiences that this territory can offer. In this direction there is also the story of the Spolettificio di Torre Annunziata which is an important property sold to the MiC by the Ministry of Defense where we will try to create a large museum area".

"The excavation of the shrine, on the one hand, is disconcerting, because it shows us the unscrupulousness with which the clandestine excavators operated, stripping almost all the walls and the interior of the room - declared the Director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel - Seeing this place of worship, annexed to the production district of the villa, reduced to these conditions, hurts, also because there are very few comparisons for this type of environment. Paradoxically, however, at the same time, it is encouraging: the State is there, together with the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Carabinieri, the Ministry of Culture is recovering a complex of great importance. The findings confirm what was found by the judicial police and the prosecutor's office. It is an excavation of active protection and I would also say of justice, after years of looting. The next steps will be: continuation of the excavations, continuation of the expropriations, demolition of expropriated buildings for the recovery of the archaeological heritage and planning of a public use of the villa: it will be a jewel of the Greater Pompeii, which will help us to better enhance the entire territory of the city ancient. I thank Minister Sangiuliano for the support and for the funds in the Budget Law for new excavations in Pompeii and other national parks, which allow us to continue the investigations in Civita Giuliana. In addition to Prosecutor Fragliasso, I would also like to thank the municipal administration in the person of Mayor Lo Sapio, because the excavations under the modern road, which led to the discovery of the chapel and the carpenter's room, are only possible thanks to an active and daily collaboration between entities that is leading to great results in Pompeii".

The investigation activities underway in Civita Giuliana costituiscono the model of an excavation which is an example of legality and protection and which becomes an opportunity for knowledge and development of research.

The objective is to continue the program of expropriations and the demolition of the buildings already acquired and at the same time expand the excavations in order to clarify the still numerous aspects of Civita Giuliana both on a scientific and legal level, and to plan.

Fundamental for the continuation of activities in the area will be the design of a broad system of accessibility and use that connects this site to the Greater Pompeii network. On this last point, a collaboration is underway with Federico II and with ReParch, a second level University Master in Restoration and Project for Archaeology.

The environments investigated so far are those of the large productive and servile neighbourhood:

– including one stable with the remains of caparisoned equids, in which it was possible to create the first full cast of a horse;

- a four-wheeled ceremonial chariot, in wood and with iron elements, with refined decorations in bronze and silver, interpreted as pilentum, that is, a vehicle used in the Roman world by the elite for ceremonies and in particular to accompany the bride to her new home, a unique example of its kind at the time in Italy;

- the so-called slave room, a servile environment which, thanks to its exceptional state of conservation and the possibility of making plaster casts of beds and other objects in perishable materials who have left their imprint in the ash, offers a very rare insight into the daily reality of the slaves who lived and worked in the villa;

- a second slave room, of which it was possible to cast a large part of the furnishings that it returns, as in a black and white photo, a precise image of the room. It allows us, for example, to hypothesize a hierarchy within the servants: while one of the two beds found is of the same make, extremely simple and without a mattress, as those in the first room mentioned above, the other is of a more comfortable and expensive type, known in the bibliography as a “headboard bed”. In the room there are also two small wardrobes, partially preserved as casts, a series of amphorae and ceramic vases and various tools, including an iron hoe.

- movable finds of various kinds and types, including common ceramic and fire dishes and cups, amphorae, decorative elements of the chariot, equine harnesses.

- a further room with a carpenter's tools. The room contains a bed, but also work tools and what appears to be a frame, perhaps from another bed, dismantled: they recognize each other, Furthermore, baskets, a long rope, pieces of wood and a saw with a blade, which seems not so different from the traditional saws used until recently. Even a piece of the rope was identified, again as an imprint underground, which kept it under tension

While on the other side of the road the residential sector with a panoramic view of the gulf was investigated where the following emerged:

- elegant environments, articulated around a peristyle delimited on two sides by a portico and characterized on the third side by a cryptoporticus;

- the two skeletons of fugitives, near the cryptoporticus, of which it was possible to make a cast.

All these new acquisitions, analyzed and documented thanks to the most advanced archaeological excavation technologies and methodologies, allow us to enrich our knowledge of aspects of daily life that are poorly documented by written and iconographic sources, contributing to reconstructing an increasingly complete picture of the articulation and functioning of one of the numerous housing complexes scattered throughout the Pompeian territory.

The exceptional nature and historical importance of this excavation from the point of view of both protection and the increasingly numerous discoveries emerging from the excavations, also made it necessary to organize an organic exhibition at the Antiquarium of Boscoreale of the main finds that emerged, including the casts of the victims of the eruption and the ceremonial chariot, in order to make this context accessible and understandable to the general public.

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