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The Buried City

Unearthing the Real Pompeii - the Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

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The Buried City

By: Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Jamie Bulloch - translator
Narrated by: Nick Biadon
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About this listen

 **THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POMPEII**

'The best book on Pompeii I've ever read' STEPHEN FRY

'An essential read for anyone interested in this extraordinary place' TELEGRAPH

'Brilliant' TOM HOLLAND

A vast area of Pompeii is being excavated for the first time, revealing astonishing insights into how people really lived. In this revelatory new history, Director of Pompeii Gabriel Zuchtriegel shares the untold stories that are at last emerging.

Pompeii is a world frozen in time. There are unmade beds, dishes left drying, tools abandoned by workmen, bodies embracing with love and fear. And alongside the remnants of everyday life, there are captivating works of art: lifelike portraits, exquisite frescos and mosaics, and the extraordinary sculpture of a sleeping boy, curled up under a blanket that's too small.

The Buried City reconstructs the catastrophe that destroyed Pompeii on 24 August 79 CE, but it also offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the city as it was before: who lived here, what mattered to them, and what happened in their final hours. It offers us a vivid sense of Pompeii's continuing relevance, and proves that ancient history is much closer to us than we think.

'A fascinating new book about what we are still learning about this most haunting of all lost cities... deeply moving' MAIL ON SUNDAY

'Makes the familiar magical' DAN SNOW©2025 Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH Ancient Archaeology Rome Ancient History

Critic Reviews

'[Gabriel] has written an essential read for anyone interested in this extraordinary place - or indeed anyone interested in running an organisation with baggage. He has a light touch, yet is philosophically challenging.'
'A fascinating new book about what we are still learning about this most haunting of all lost cities... the discoveries will continue for many years yet. And they can be as deeply moving as any film or novel.' (Christopher Hart)
'This is not just the best book on Pompeii I've ever read - it's the best book on the glorious realities of archaeology itself. Gabriel Zuchtriegel will surely inspire a whole new generation in the field with his blend of knowledge, experience and boundless passion. It has left me panting to revisit Pompeii with the new, excited eyes that this magnificent book has given me.' (STEPHEN FRY)
'Zuchtriegel makes the familiar magical. He challenges us to transform our relationship with the past, and shows us a new, far more satisfying, way to think about Pompeii and its people.' (DAN SNOW)
A brilliant account of the latest discoveries at Pompeii and a deeply personal celebration of the inherent fascination of antiquity. (TOM HOLLAND, author of PAX and DOMINION)
Fantastic! Hugely informative, clever, thoughtful and playful (NATALIE HAYNES, author of DIVINE MIGHT and PANDORA'S JAR)
In The Buried City, the director of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, reveals the latest archaeological finds to show what life was like in AD79 before Vesuvius erupted...What is special about Pompeii, Zuchtriegel says, is not its temples or theatres but its workshops, taverns, baths and bordellos, the unmade beds and uneaten meals, the lives, high and low, interrupted suddenly when the mountain exploded. All human life is there... Zuchtriegel speaks up for the under-privileged, including today... fascinating and well argued.
The everyday is his highest art. This book has an honestly expressed aim to encourage readers to bring their whole selves into their thinking about Pompeii... There is much charming chatter in The Buried City as well as learned disquisition, always lightly delivered, and a powerful sense of a man grappling with what we can take from antiquity.
A thoughtful, revelatory and above all deeply human account of life - and death - by the director of the most awe-inspiring archaeological site on the planet. Zuchtriegel describes the realities of his profession with such honesty and verve. (DAISY DUNN, author of IN THE SHADOW OF VESUVIUS: A LIFE OF PLINY)
An exceptionally moving and thought provoking book, it reads as a conversation with the past, and leads you to reflect on how that conversation changes with each generation. The Buried City is a deeply moving examination of the lives of ordinary people in Pompeii through the extraordinary objects discovered there, it is also a beautiful reflection on what Pompeii can tell us about ourselves. (ELODIE HARPER, author of the WOLF DEN trilogy)
All stars
Most relevant
I’ve read/listened to many books on Pompeii and this is one of the best. A great new perspective from someone who ran the show. Just as good as the works by Mary Beard.

Excellent new perspective on Pompeii

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I liked the project to bring local kids to an appreciation of Pompeii through performing ancient plays in an ancient theatre there.

Originality and creativity of the author

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I’m with Stephen Fry on this one – it is the best book I’ve ever read on Pompeii. But it’s so much more than a book on Pompeii. While Dr Zuchtriegel covers the expected topics of what is known about this endlessly fascinating ancient site, the excavation sites, the recent finds, restoration projects etc., he also examines the discipline of archaeology, questions its role generally and, specifically, the role of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. He takes individual frescoes or objects and discusses their place in the town’s history and their possible meaning to the owners. His personal and professional anecdotes illustrate the warmth and humanity of this obviously very erudite man, a man deeply committed to his work and his profession. Nick Biadon's narration is perfect, it's a pleasure to listen to him.

Magnificent

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I am not sure what I was expecting but the author presented nothing particularly interesting about the the inhabitants of Pompeii. Obviously, I admire his work in uncovering about the archaeological remains of the city and the people but it was a self satisfied head of the team. I have visited Pompeii a number of times including various other Roman cities and I was disappointed in not much new in the sociological aspect of Roman society which tends to focus naturally on the elite because they were literate and left much what is known.

Rather boring

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