Wood and its material essence are at the heart of the exhibition “Materia. The Wood That Did Not Burn in Herculaneum.” Herculaneum is the only city in the Roman world that preserves wood as a construction material, for furnishings, and more. Tools, architectural elements, and wooden furniture in Herculaneum were carbonized by the pyroclastic flow—a scorching cloud of magmatic material and gases at extremely high temperatures—that repeatedly buried Herculaneum under about 20 meters of volcanic product during the eruption of 79 AD.

This dramatic event has left us with a unique heritage, preserved thanks to the meticulous work of laborers, restorers, architects, and archaeologists, who have passed the baton from one generation to the next in the complex and exciting challenge of conservation. This effort began with the excavations led by Amedeo Maiuri in the 1930s and continues to this day.

The exhibition finally showcases the wooden objects from Herculaneum, providing extraordinary confirmation of what was previously known only from written sources, frescoes, and ancient reliefs. It offers a rare opportunity to reconstruct ancient woodworking and cabinetry techniques and to grasp the details of daily life for the inhabitants of Herculaneum two thousand years ago.

Fixtures such as doors, windows, and partitions, as well as furniture including cabinets, chests, tabernacles, beds, and wooden tables, are the work of skilled Roman craftsmen. The careful restoration work has allowed the recovery of many precious objects that, although mostly appearing as carbonized wood, retain their original shape and beautiful carved decorations.

The exhibition is produced by the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum with the usual support of the Packard Humanities Institute and is part of an extraordinary inter-institutional collaboration with the Metropolitan City of Naples, the Department of Agriculture and the Musa (Museum Center of the Royal Palace of Portici) of the University of Naples Federico II, with sponsorship from HEBANON Fratelli Basile 1830. The setup is entrusted to the company ACME04, with the contribution of the Campania Region – Directorate General for Cultural Policies and Tourism, as part of the POC 2014-2020 interventions.

Thanks to the extraordinary collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and the Musa (Museum Center of the Royal Palace of Portici) of the University of Naples Federico II, the exhibition is set up at the Royal Palace of Portici, just a few meters from the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum.

This splendid 18th-century palace was built as a summer residence for the Bourbon royal family and, following the first excavations, became the site of the Herculanense Museum, one of the world’s first archaeological museums, visited by Grand Tour travelers from all over Europe. In the 19th century, during the decade of Napoleonic rule, it was the residence of Murat and later housed the Royal School of Agriculture of Portici.

The exhibition route is arranged in several rooms on the main floor of the palace, where visitors can immerse themselves in the life of the ancients and understand many aspects of their daily life through the display of over 120 objects, enhanced by immersive setups.