Pompeii and Ercolano heritage initiatives

In mid‑July 2026 a coordinated push to bring the archaeology of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum to a broad audience began with the launch of a National Geographic docuseries, “Pompeii: Out of Time,” hosted by Tom Hiddleston, and the opening of a permanent exhibition of plaster casts of the victims of the AD 79 eruption at the Palestra Grande. The series highlighted three individuals who survived the disaster, while the cast display showcased 22 well‑preserved bodies alongside artifacts that reveal everyday life before the eruption.

A few days later Italian cultural authorities expanded the effort with large‑scale exhibitions at Rome’s Castel Sant'Angelo, featuring more than 70 artifacts from the Herculaneum site, and a Disney+ debut of a three‑episode docudrama, “Pompei: Fuori dal tempo,” also narrated by Hiddleston. Both initiatives aimed to present recent scholarly findings and engage the public with the ancient cities’ daily life and the events surrounding Vesuvius’s eruption.

In early August 2026 the campaign continued with the Disney+ release of “Pompeii: Beyond Time,” a three‑part documentary produced by National Geographic and again presented by Hiddleston. The series revisits Pompeii and Herculaneum using archaeological evidence, expert interviews and dramatized reconstructions of imagined survivors, linking the ancient catastrophe to modern cultural interest and tourism.