The Herculaneum site is particularly important for understanding the ancient world. While much is known about the cities of the Roman Empire, their urbanistic aspects, administrative and economic organisation, laws and political facts, what makes Herculaneum special is the possibility it affords us to look in detail at the activities of this city at a precise moment in history, reconstructing its daily life.

The regularity of the urban layout is striking, with the decumani running parallel to the coastline, and the cardini, perpendicular to them, defining rectangular housing lots. Today, the decumanus maximus serves as the demarcation between the excavated area and the area still buried under Corso Resina; in the centre of the archaeological area runs the decumanus inferior.

Given the existence of another decumanus to the north, the extent of the city has been hypothetically calculated at around twenty hectares, of which more than four are visible.  Along the eastern edge of the excavation, the large gymnasium with a cruciform basin was partially excavated, one of the few public buildings of the city brought to light, together with the seat of the College of the Augustales and the bath complexes—the central one, divided into two sections, one for men and the other for women, and the suburban one, which constitutes one of the best-preserved bath buildings in the Roman world.

The Basilica Noniana and the Augusteum have been investigated using the Bourbon tunnels, but they remain buried in the fill of pyroclastic materials. This is also the case with the theatre, although it can be visited via an underground route using the Bourbon-era tunnels.

On the whole, the public area of the city has been barely touched by the open-air excavations, which have instead brought to light the residential and commercial quarters of four entire insulae and, to the EAST, the so-called Insulae Orientalis I and II, where the gymnasium, some residences and the suburban baths are located. The latter complex overlooks the southern terrace, most of which is occupied by the sanctuary of Venus and an open space dominated by the statue and funeral altar of the city’s illustrious protector, Marcus Nonius Balbus.

The residential complexes, with their spacious gardens and luxurious rooms, often open onto terraces overlooking the sea, lavishly adorned with exquisite decorations and domestic furnishings, constituted the luxury residences of Herculaneum’s municipal elite, to which written documents (wax tablets and papyrus scrolls) provide much evidence.