Archaeological sites in Naples

Naples (Italy) and its immediate surroundings preserve an archaeological heritage of inestimable value and among the best in the world. For example, the archaeological park of the Phlegraean Fields (Cumae, Baiae, the Flavian Amphitheatre and the Pozzuoli forum) is directly connected to the centre of Naples through the Cumana railway, and the nearby sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis are among the World Heritage Sites of UNESCO.
Despite the ancient city being largely buried by the extensive modern city, remains are preserved in many places. Parthènope, the first settlement founded by the Cumaeans of Naples on the Pizzofalcone hill in the 8th century BC, has left only a few traces, such as the 7th century BC necropolis and the stretch of a wall in the Town Hall square, probably belonging to the port.
Much more visible is the 6th c. BC Greek and later Roman city of Neapolis, partly due to the relatively recent underground extension, which includes many archaeological sites and finds preserved in various city archaeological museums.
Much of the rectangular street grid of the 6th century BC is still followed by modern streets.
The Greek system of three main roads parallel to each other, called plateiai (decumani in the Roman era), cross the urban centre dividing it into four parts. These streets were cut perpendicularly from north to south by smaller streets called stenopoi of which there were up to 24.
The 3 decumani are, from west to east:
The agora was located at the centre of the Decumanus Maximus. The agora underlying the Piazza San Gaetano was divided in two by the main street where on the north side, near the temple of the Dioscuri (today Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore), religious functions took place while on the south side was the market, the aerarium and other public buildings. The excavations of San Lorenzo Maggiore which can be visited show the remains of the agora.
In the Roman period the lower decumanus was lengthened towards the southwest from Piazza del Gesù Nuovo up to via Domenico Capitelli.
The theatre was one of the glories of Neapolis according to Augustus, the guardian of Hellenic culture.
Claudius had plays performed here in honour of his beloved brother Germanicus. In 64 AD Nero performed here. Naples prided itself on its Greek origins and Greek culture. Nero took his appearances on stage seriously, practicing, engaging in the strenuous voice-exercises, learning his performance. He had just started to sing when a violent earthquake occurred that he interpreted as the gods' appreciation so continued to sing and forced the audience to stay. The theatre collapsed afterwards.
The theatre was renovated during the late 1st century and in the 2nd century. Statius in the Flavian age exalts in the temples and a large arcaded square (perhaps the Forum) and refers to two large theatres in the city, the open and the covered one, located in the upper part of the Forum, behind the sacred area of the temple of the Dioscuri.
The fall of the Roman Empire also marked the fall of theatrical performances in general and the structure was abandoned, also after a flood between the 5th and 6th centuries.
The mediaeval period saw the oblivion of the structure, used first as a small necropolis (datable to the 7th century) or landfill and finally, between the 15th and 17th centuries it was overwhelmed by the construction of buildings on the cavea.
The interiors were used as stables, cellars, warehouses and shops until recently. First discoveries took place in 1859 for the excavation of a sewer. The first archaeological excavation was at the end of the 19th century in the garden of the building at the centre of the theatre. The first recovery plan dates to 1939 but only from 1997 was the theatre partially unveiled, and from 2003 the cavea was revealed in the internal garden.
The theatre lies between via Anticaglia to the north, via San Paolo to the west and vico Giganti to the east. Dating to the 1st century BC, it was built over a previous Greek building of the 4th century BC, also probably intended for theatrical performance. Unlike the Odeon which stood next to it and was intended for particular musical events, the theatre was uncovered.
Its structure has been used in the walls of present houses and the overall structure and many elements are still visible. A large part of the centre of the theatre is visible in an open area between a number of houses.
Two massive arches in via Anticaglia were reinforcement for the outside of the theatre and are incorporated into existing buildings.
The cavea had 5-6000 seats. The visible part is lower central cavea and includes one of the vomitoria still used for accessing the theatre. The summa cavea, the highest part, has been lost. The entrance to the cavea is from Via San Paolo through an ancient shop in the courtyard of a 15th-century building.
The first walls of Neapolis date from the 6th century BC. Remains are largely buried beneath the modern city but can be seen in several places where they have been brought to light.
The blocks were extracted from a vast quarry of the Greek age located in Poggioreale; it was identified by chance in 1987 following subsidence under the Pianto cemetery below the square of the church of Santa Maria del Pianto. The quarry has horizontal ridges corresponding to the height of the blocks and, surprisingly, the characteristic alphabetical marks of the ancient quarrymen. From the quarry the blocks were transported to the city along the straight line of via Nuova Poggioreale to via Casanova to enter Naples from the ancient gate where Castel Capuano is now located.
The Greek walls followed the edges of the plateau on which Neapolis stands and the natural valleys that surrounded the town formed defensive slopes. The walls had a reputation for impregnability, confirmed by historical sources after the Hannibalic war (218-202 BC) and during the Gothic War (535–554) AD.
Several building phases have been recognised:
The first phase of the foundation of Neapolis (end of the 6th century BC) is distinguished by the use of grainy grey tuff orthostates. The wall was partly a single curtain which followed the crest of the hills, and otherwise a double curtain reinforced by internal wall braces which created cells that were filled with tuff rubble. The "keyed" type of masonry with overlapping blocks also belongs to this first phase.
The second phase of the 4th century BC (connected to the Samnite wars) is characterised instead by the use of compact yellow tuff blocks. It has a curtain wall with transverse braces in the same technique, built against the walls of the first phase which thus becomes the inner curtain. Characteristic of the second phase walls are quarry signs, single letters or links in the Greek alphabet which were carved on the individual blocks during quarrying.
Recent excavations have identified modifications of other phases dating to the third century BC.
The dry tuff wall built by the Greeks was altered in Roman times; they used harder Piperno for the external wall and an internal curtain in tuff.
The walls did not undergo significant enlargements until Valentinian III (440 AD) built an extension towards the port area, attested by an inscription found in 1747 and by the recent finds of walls in Corso Umberto and in possibly part of the Byzantine fortification in Piazza Bovio.
The walls initially survived intact during the Gothic War (535–554) but they were partly razed after the city's surrender to the Ostrogith Totila after the Siege of Naples (542–43).
The excavations of the Municipio station have proved so fruitful that they have been described by archaeologists as the "wells of St. Patrick". In this excavation alone many thousands of ceramic fragments have been found. The result has been a combination of station and archaeological park with many of the ancient remains preserved in-situ.
The first discovery in 2003 was a 10 m-long boat of the 2nd century AD, found upside down and very similar to the one in Herculaneum in 1982. This made it possible to precisely define the ancient coastline.
The Roman port was brought to light in 2004, 3.5 m below sea level and 13 m below ground which settled the hypotheses on its exact location. In addition many items were brought to light: leather soles of shoes, coins, Corinthian seals with decorations of Bacchic scenes, balsam bottles, a considerable quantity of well-preserved ceramics (amphorae, terracotta pots, cups of African production), glass bottles closed with cork stoppers, rings to join the rigging with the sails, needles to mend the nets, wooden harpoons for fishing, Roman stone anchors and oil lamps.
Also in 2004 a second Roman boat was found, identical to the first, which led archaeologists to assume that the Romans had a fleet of harbour ferry boats.
Then a 3rd larger boat was found, 3.60 m x 13.5 m, from the 1st-2nd century AD. A 4th one was found with a very wide keel, with low beams and a flat bow so as to facilitate docking at the pier and loading and unloading goods. A total of 7 boats were eventually found together with the wharfs. A road along the quays was found, most likely the via per cryptam built by Augustus to connect Neapolis with Puteoli through the Crypta Neapolitana.
During the excavations of the Duomo station (Metro Line 1) located in Piazza Nicola Amore, many finds emerged which are second in number only to those found at the Municipio station.
The first find at the end of 2003 was the remains of an imposing public building built in the Augustan age for the Isolympic Games. In 2004 the entrance to the ancient Gymnasium used by young people both as a gym and as a place to listen to philosophers and poets. Numerous architectural elements emerged: marble columns, fragments of the pediment, parts of the mosaic floor, the wall structure of a staircase (from which the steps were removed) and part of the side marble balustrades.
The temple of the Neapolitan Isolympic Games dedicated to Augustus dating from the early 1st c. AD was found. Marble slabs carved with the names of the winners of the Isolympics, in Greek, divided into categories (men, women, girls, boys) and disciplines (wrestling, boxing etc.). More than 400 pieces of these panels that had once covered the walls of a large portico in front of the Augustus temple have now been found, by far the greatest number of Greek inscriptions from one place in Italy.
It is the most important thermal baths complex of Naples and lies under the basilica of Santa Chiara. A museum section displays amphorae, ceramic objects and marbles dating to the 2nd and 3rd century AD.
Located under the complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore and Piazza San Gaetano, excavations of the 80s and early 90s show the remains of the commercial area that developed around the ancient Greek agora dating to the 4th century BC with some parts from the imperial period.
It is located at the centre of the ancient city on the Greek agora or later Roman forum. On the northern side of the agora was the temple of Dioscuri. On the southern side is the shopping district including a large two-story building, the macellum (covered meat market), dating from the 2nd-1st c. BC, whose upper floor was at the level of Via dei Tribunali. It had a rectangular plan with a small circular temple at its centre and shops all around, some with workshops inside, and mosaic floors throughout. The colonnaded temple of the tholos type had a fountain.
Also visible is the decumanus maximus, the main street. Several elegant atrium houses border the street.
Located inside the Vergiliano park in Piedigrotta, the crypta is a tunnel 700 metres long dug into the tuff which was part of a plan by the Romans to build various military infrastructures at that time. After the fall of the Roman empire, the tunnel was used for civil purposes as it was able to easily connect two areas of the city very distant from each other, Mergellina with Fuorigrotta. The gallery was modified from the 15th century under the dominion of Alfonso V of Aragon and lasted until the reign of Joseph Bonaparte when he had oil lamps installed inside. There are many legends that revolve around the Neapolitan crypta, above all the one that it was the Latin poet Virgil, buried near the eastern entrance of the gallery, who excavated it.
The park is located on the Posillipo hill, outside the ancient city centre. It offers the opportunity to visit several archaeological fragments from the Roman era, as well as important sites such as: the Odeon theatre, the imperial villa of Pausylipon, the submerged park of Gaiola, the palace of the Spirits and the cave of Seiano, the latter 770 metres long, and commissioned by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa to connect the villas of Pausilypon to the areas of Cumae and Puteoli. The villa today is in fact one of the two entrances to the archaeological park.
Until the beginning of the first century AD, before the excavation of the narrow and risky Crypta Neapolitana (the connecting tunnel) the cities of Neapolis and Puteoli (Pozzuoli) were connected by a 15 km-long road passing through the hills, presumably built by the Greeks. The Romans called it Via Neapolis-Puteolim per colles and transformed it into a real road in the 2nd century BC and improved it around 100 AD. It continued to be used because it linked the city to settlements in the hills and the tunnel was dangerous.
From Puteoli, after Agnano, Fuorigrotta and the locality of Marcianum, the via per colles went up the Loggetta and the Canzanella, reached the Vomero hill in the S. Stefano area, continued along Via Belvedere and passed through Antignano. After Piazza Antignano it went down Via S.Gennaro, Via Conte della Cerra, Salvator Rosa. Finally, after the area of Piazza Mazzini it descended along a path between the Ventaglieri and the Cavone to enter the city.
Along the road 3 milestones were found at the 5th, 8th at Antignano, and 10th miles. The inscriptions on the milestones show it was Trajan (98-117 AD) who completed the repairs on the road begun by his father Nerva (96-98 AD). The road is marked by remains of a bridge with brick arches found during the construction of the subway in 2000 in Via Salvator Rosa. The road is also traced by worked lava stones, probably paving slabs, incorporated into the tuff wall of Villa Salve that runs along Corso Europa.
Recently, arches of the twin aqueduct have been revealed in basements between via Arena and vico Traetta and are open to the public. They run from north to south for a long section at a constant separation of 10m and after varying their directions come as close as 2m in the southern part. The western channel is Augustan, whereas the eastern part was added later.
They have sparked increased interest in research, which has led to more exploration of the line of the monumental aqueduct. An immense cistern on the line of the channels has been found next to the Hellenistic necropolis. Also a new piece of the ancient aqueduct has been identified uphill from via Foria in the “Miracoli” district where the channel runs underground for 220 m.
The aqueduct provided enough water to encourage the proliferation of thermal baths. Public baths were a key part of Roman social life, and their popularity grew from the late 1st c. BC to the 1st c. AD. While there were several baths in the region before the Aqua Augusta, many more were built subsequently.
At the end of the Crypta Neapolitana the new via per cryptam road bent to the north and reconnected with the old via per colles road (the present via Terracina) and here the thermal spa complex was built. The baths are extraordinary since they seem to have been located there specifically for travellers rather than for local residents. The Aqua Augusta provided the water for the bath complex and has been excavated nearby.
Much of the remains of this major archaeological site are visible today. It was a large complex with three principal baths: the apodyterium, the frigidarium, and the caldarium. It included a semi-circular latrine flushed with overflow water.
The ancient Greek cemeteries (necropoli) of Naples are extensive underground, often elaborate, tombs (hypogea) dating mainly from the Hellenistic era (4th-3rd c. BC). They were dug into the tuff at a depth (today) of about 10-12m, outside the city walls and many have survived because of their depth. They have the character of necropoli as many of the tombs were in series along a public road where travellers could admire the entrances.
These burial grounds represent the expressions of the Neapolitan aristocracy of the period, born from the union of Greek and Samnite elements. Furthermore, many of their contents and features suggest influences from the Middle and Far East. The sarcophagi of the burial ground in via Cristallini, for example, show paintings that can be traced back to Egyptian culture. The interiors of the tombs are often elaborately decorated with frescoes and contain sculpted sarcophagi painted in bright colours.
Most of the known sites are located between via Arena alla Sanità, via Santa Maria Antesaecula, via Vergini, via Cristallini (known as the Ipogeo dei Cristallini), via Foria and vico Traetta. Others include particularly:
These often highly decorated underground cemeteries were dug into the tuff or other easily removed ground by the Christian community. In terms of archaeological and artistic importance they are considered third in Italy after those of Rome and Syracuse which are more extensive and numerous. They are mostly located in the Rione Sanità but extend over a large area.
Previously Christians were buried together with pagans but as the community became more numerous, they created collective cemeteries. At first the catacombs were used exclusively for funerary purposes and for the cult of the martyrs buried there but they became increasingly at the centre of the religious life of the city. The oldest city catacombs date to the 2nd century AD.
The main ancient catacombs known today are: