Herculaneum House Conserved and Reopened to Public

NAPLES, ITALY—According to a Reuters report, Herculaneum’s House of the Bicentenary, a lavish three-story property boasting more than 6,000 square feet of living space, has reopened following extensive conservation. Gaius Petronius Stephanus and his wife Calantonia Themis lived in the House of the Bicentenary, which is located on the main street of the ancient Roman town buried by about 50 feet of volcanic ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Herculaneum was smaller than Pompeii, which is located about ten miles to the south, but is thought to have been inhabited by wealthier Romans. Archaeologist Domenico Camardo of the Herculaneum Conservation Project said a sliding wooden grill, placed at the entrance to the building, survived the disaster. The house, discovered in 1938 and named after the 200th anniversary of the first excavations in the ancient city, was closed to the public in 1983 for restoration and repair, including the removal of a coating that had been applied to its frescoes which had caused the paint to flake. “It was an occasion to develop new, innovative materials and methods for conservation that can be used in the site and elsewhere,” the Getty Conservation Institute's Leslie Rainer explained. To read more about Herculaneum's frescoes, go to "Putting on a New Face."