Herculaneum Archaeological Park experiments with slow visitation and opens the Pomegranate Garden

Starting Sunday, September 3, 2023, the Herculaneum Archaeological Park will open one of the gardens of the House of Telefo’s Relief, the so-called Pomegranate Garden. With this project, the Park intends to experiment with slow visitation, prioritizing the quality of time and experience through the adoption of slower rhythms; thus, visitors are offered the opportunity to pause in a place shaded by pomegranate trees and the last two large pines still standing on the site. Volumes in different languages will be made available here to read and consult on comfortable folding loungers; the multifunctional space will be enlivened with various displays and initiatives over the coming weeks. Access to the Telefo Relief House Garden is included in the entrance fee and during the same visiting hours as the archaeological site. An ancient and narrow street, the Southern Alley, on which one of the two known bakeries of ancient Herculaneum opens, equipped with a toilet (latrine) that at first belonged to the nearby Gymnasium and then passed into the availability of those who ran this bakery, will also be opened.

“The intervention in the garden of the House of the Relief of Telefo,” says Herculaneum Archaeological Park Director Francesco Sirano, “aims to offer the public not only a pleasant resting space, adequately equipped, but a place that stimulates reflection, listening and in-depth study of themes characterizing Roman society, theotium first and foremost, and above all, for the current time in which we are protagonists, the rediscovery of free time understood not as an empty space but as a space of the soul, populated by intellectual, meditative and recreational activities that for the ancient Romans represented a fundamental element of the lifestyle and moral temperament and that in Herculaneum find full expression in the exceptional testimonies of the Villa of the Papyri.”

Herculaneum Archaeological Park experiments with slow visitation and opens the Pomegranate Garden

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.