The Italian Cultural Institute in Haifa
is pleased to invite you to the second lecture in the series:
Treasures and celebrations of the Gulf of Naples: Art and Culture from Naples to Pompeii
POMPEII: A CITY FROZEN IN TIME
Presents Dr. Hamutal Suliman-Wolf, researcher at
the University of Haifa, Department of Art History
Tuesday, 10 March 2026, @ 18:00
ONLINE | Webex & YouTube
Free event, in Hebrew.
To book and receive the link for the Webex meeting, please fill in the REGISTRATION FORM
Pompeii was situated at the heart of Hellenistic culture, with roots reaching back to the period between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. By 79 CE, at the time of Vesuvius’ eruption, it had long been incorporated into greater Rome and numbered roughly 20,000 inhabitants, drawn from different social strata—elite, middling groups, and the lower orders—and from diverse regions, as the archaeological assemblage suggests. Pompeii therefore constitutes a source of singular importance for understanding life in the Roman Empire.
In the aftermath of the eruption, the settlement was entombed beneath volcanic deposits and slipped into obscurity until its rediscovery in the seventeenth century. Archaeological excavations have since brought to light the city’s principal public and private spaces—temples, baths, a theatre, and numerous frescoed dwellings—offering an exceptionally detailed portrait of everyday life and artistic production in the period.
In this talk, we will consider some of the most significant discoveries from Pompeii and reconstruct the dynamics of its destruction, pausing in particular on the treasures that Vesuvius, paradoxically, helped to preserve.
- FREE admission. Online event, in Hebrew.
- To receive the link for the Webex meeting, please fill in the REGISTRATION FORM.
As an alternative, you may follow this lecture online via:
The series | The history of the Neapolitan region reaches back to before the 8th century BCE, when merchants from Asia Minor and Greece used the gulf as a key hub in their trading networks. The settlement of Naples, or Neapolis, was founded at the end of the 6th century BCE by aristocrats exiled from Cumae, and it quickly became one of the major centers of Magna Graecia and, more broadly, of southern Italy. The city continued to thrive and expand under Roman rule as well: Rome regarded it as a model of high Hellenistic culture and allowed its inhabitants to preserve the Greek language and customs. The Gulf of Naples thus stands out as a true crossroads of ancient peoples and cultures, which has bequeathed to us an outstanding heritage—archaeological remains, monumental architecture, vividly colored frescoes, and an extraordinary wealth of works of art.
Free event, in Hebrew.