Pompeii’s newest attraction is not a fresco, a mosaic, or a newly opened room. It is a digital reconstruction that will let visitors see the city before and during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.
The new augmented reality app, Portyl, uses LiDAR, photogrammetry, and generative artificial intelligence to recreate sites across the ancient city. Every location has been scanned, researched, and rebuilt by a team from History, Incorporated, a historic preservation consulting firm. The first site to go live is the House of the Citarista, one of Pompeii’s largest residences, which opens to the public today.
Inside the house, visitors will encounter digitally reconstructed rooms, furnishings, and scenes of daily life. The site also contains the statue of Apollo the Citharist, also known as Apollo Citharoedus, a depiction of the Greek god of music playing the cithara, a large lyre. Many of the house’s frescoes and artifacts were removed to the Naples Museum, but Portyl aims to restore a sense of the building’s original atmosphere.
The app will be free for all visitors until July 15. After that, three features will remain free: the basilica, the quadriportico, and the exterior of the amphitheater. Other immersive features will cost €15 ($17), while a tablet with all content unlocked will be available for €20 ($23). Portyl will also be accessible remotely.
Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said in press materials that artificial intelligence offers “an extraordinary opportunity” when it is used to democratize knowledge and make difficult material more accessible. He also warned against a system that becomes detached from research and heritage itself. “Archaeologists must not become passive spectators of machines processing data and reconstructions,” he said, “but conscious directors of the transmission of heritage.”
For a site that has fascinated visitors since its excavation in the 18th century, Portyl adds a new layer to an old story: not only preservation, but interpretation shaped by the tools of the 21st century.
