Pompeii will host a special edition of the European Researchers' Night dedicated to making archaeological research accessible to everyone. The message of the evening is direct: the excavations hold no secrets, and the people who study, conserve and explain them will be there to answer questions.

The event runs from 18:00 to 22:00 at the Giuseppe Fiorelli Library, with free and open access from Via Plinio. Instead of formal lectures, the programme offers informal, continuous talks that put visitors in direct contact with the professionals who work across the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

That format fits the subject. Research at Pompeii is not the work of one discipline. Archaeologists, restorers, anthropologists, architects, engineers and diagnosticians will take part, showing how excavation, conservation and public presentation depend on continuous cooperation.

What visitors will discover

The programme covers the research themes now shaping work in the park:

  • The digital atlas of Pompeii and the use of digital technologies for documentation and study
  • Scheduled maintenance as a method for long-term conservation
  • Archival documents as a source for understanding the site and past interventions
  • Protection of frescoes and mosaics
  • Research on the Temple of Isis
  • Current excavations in the House of the Thiasus in Regio IX

Together, the topics move from the ground to the laboratory to the archive: what is being excavated now, how fragile surfaces are protected, how maps and digital records guide decisions, and how older documents help interpret what is found.

The inclusion of current fieldwork in the House of the Thiasus in Regio IX gives the evening a clear focal point. Visitors can connect general questions about method — how an excavation proceeds, what specialists look for, how finds are recorded — to one active research site.

A library at the centre of the evening

The venue is part of the story. The Giuseppe Fiorelli Library is an archaeology library specialising in Pompeii and the Vesuvian area, with more than 21,000 volumes and free public access.

Holding the Researchers' Night there underlines the link between fieldwork and knowledge: excavations produce objects and data, but books, archives, drawings and research reports make them intelligible over time. For a visitor, it is also a practical introduction to a public resource that can be used before or after a visit to the site.

Part of a wider European initiative

The Pompeii evening belongs to the European Researchers' Night, the annual initiative supported through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions that brings research and researchers closer to citizens.

In Pompeii, that European aim takes a concrete form. Conservation, accessibility, digital mapping and preventive care are not abstract ideas here; they are daily decisions affecting walls, paintings, mosaics, visitor routes and future excavations. Meeting the people responsible for those decisions helps explain why research matters beyond academic publication.

How to make the most of the visit

Because the talks are continuous and informal, visitors do not need to follow a fixed order. A useful approach is to arrive with one or two questions: how frescoes survive burial and exposure, what scheduled maintenance means in practice, how digital tools change archaeological recording, or what makes Regio IX important now.

Families and first-time visitors may find the multidisciplinary angle especially helpful. If a child asks how old a wall is, an archaeologist answers one way; a restorer, an architect, an anthropologist or a diagnostics specialist answers differently. Hearing several answers to the same question is the clearest introduction to how modern heritage science works.

Practical points to remember: the event takes place from 18:00 to 22:00 at the Giuseppe Fiorelli Library, with free access from Via Plinio. The original report presents the event as imminent, using "tomorrow" without giving a separate calendar date in the retrieved text, so visitors should check the latest park information before travelling.

For anyone who knows Pompeii only as a place to walk through, this night offers another view: Pompeii as a working research laboratory, where study, conservation and public access advance together.