Explore the British Museum's Pompeii and Herculaneum collection

Explore the collection of vivid frescoes Pompeii left behind

This gallery showcases remarkably preserved frescoes depicting food, daily life, landscapes, and myth. Tools abandoned during the eruption reveal how ancient artists worked, offering insight into Pompeii’s visual culture before Vesuvius buried the city in ash.

Experts reconstruct Pompeii’s daily life—and whether disaster could strike again

This documentary utilizes archaeology, X-rays, and 3D reconstructions to reconstruct what the streets, homes, and rituals of Pompeii looked like before 79 CE. Scientists also use satellite imaging to track landslide risks that could damage the site today.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

The art and architecture of the devastated Pompeii

Long buried under feet of ash, the city of Pompeii's discovery millennia later sparked a world of imagination and tragedy. See a collection of paintings, buildings, and photographs from the city all in one easy-to-browse gallery.

A nearby town proved even more archaeologically important than Pompeii

Herculaneum, buried under five times more ash than Pompeii, was sealed so completely that food, furniture, and entire buildings survived. This BBC documentary reveals how its discoveries have transformed scholars' understanding of the diets, work, and social mobility of ordinary Romans.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii

Excavations revealed stunning finds—a wooden bed, a horse's saddle, and vivid frescoes—while also suggesting the eruption may have occurred in October, not April. See the discoveries from the EU's $140M Great Pompeii Project.

A 101 on Pompeii

Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 CE preserved an entire Roman city in ash, leaving future archaeologists an unprecedented gift: the most complete glimpse to date into the daily life of ancient Romans. The encyclopedia entry, originally written by one of the site’s leading archaeological scholars, is a one-stop shop for all things Pompeii, including what several generations of archaeologists have discovered over centuries of excavation.

Explore Pompeii with an interactive map packed with 60+ key sites

This tool provides detailed information on major landmarks—from the Villa of Mysteries to the House of the Tragic Poet—and suggests themed walking routes based on visit length. A companion app adds virtual reconstructions and a full audioguide.

Explore a database of ancient graffiti

Take a look at thousands of pieces of graffiti from the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, including name tags, crude jokes, and crude drawings. The database, maintained by classical scholars, allows you to explore maps of the cities and images of the original inscriptions.

Pompeii had cafés, nightlife, public baths, and even local elections

This BBC History guide highlights how recognizably modern Pompeii was, from its cafés and bustling public bathing complexes to its theaters, bars, and active voting culture. Historian Mary Beard reveals the city’s surprisingly contemporary feel.

A 3D animation brings Pompeii's final day to life

This animation recreates the city from a rooftop vantage point, showing how an ordinary day turned deadly as Vesuvius erupted. The most chilling moment comes when a 900-degree cloud of toxic gas engulfs Pompeii in seconds.

Explore the Museum of the World

This collaboration between the British Museum and Google presents an interactive timeline showing artifacts from five world regions. Go back in time and learn about each item from the museum.

Hear the untold colonial backstories of the British Museum’s most famous artifacts

This podcast from VICE’s Unfiltered History Tour visits the British Museum’s prized objects through accounts from experts and communities from which they were taken.

Visualize ancient Rome in 3D with this aerial view

Researchers have compiled meticulous representations of ancient Rome in this video game-like depiction of the Eternal City from the air. For eight minutes, viewers can take in what Rome looked like two millennia ago, from the terracotta-topped homes to the Forum and Colosseum.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

View an interactive collection of historical documents from the Viking project

This collection includes original mission bulletins, engineering and planning documents, and interview segments from more than 80 Viking team members who made the historic exploration of Mars’ surface by a lander possible.

Scientists are reconstructing ancient smells—including a 3,500-year-old ancient Egyptian mummy

Researchers explain how they have recreated the scent of ancient Egyptian mummies and enabled museum-goers to experience that scent on specialized cards. The exhibit will be at the Royal BC Museum in Canada in June 2026.

What to see at the Met

With hundreds of thousands of objects on display at any given time, how do you decide what to see at the Met? This video tour from Behind the Masterpiece walks through some of the museum’s most popular and interesting works, like the ancient Temple of Dendur and John Singer Sargent's 'Portrait of Madame X', explaining their cultural context and why they’ve captivated visitors for so many years.

See the major Egyptian monuments in high definition

The massive, hard-to-imagine mammoth structures can be viewed here in 4K, dramatic detail with this stunning video. Visit the Great Pyramids of Giza, the temples at Karnak and Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, and more millennia-old monuments.

A virtual tour of Philadelphia’s American Revolution Museum

Philadelphia’s Old City hosts one of the largest museums on the American Revolution. This virtual tour allows you to view the museum’s exhibits as if you were there by zooming in on descriptions, browsing images, and learning about artifacts, portraits, and more.

Browse the prehistoric salad bar with these ancient plants

In this video, Benjamin Burger, associate professor of geology at Utah State University’s Uintah Basin Campus talks about the different types of plants present during the Mesozoic Era. Professor Burger explores how these plants changed over time, served as food sources for the dinosaurs, and co-evolved with them during this period.

Take a series of virtual tours of Biosphere 2

The videos provide a 360-degree view of the indoor rainforest, ocean ecosystem, Landscape Evolution Observatory, and underground technosphere. A Google Maps Street View option is available to explore additional biomes, with each associated with a different floor level on the bottom right.

The underground cities of the Byzantine Empire

This TED-Ed video explores the mysterious cave cities of Cappadocia. Although their oldest sections may go back to the Bronze Age, most of these subterranean complexes were excavated during the Byzantine period, when the locals went underground to take shelter from Arab raiders. Monasteries were also cut into pinnacles of the local tufa, and decorated with frescoes that have often survived to the present.

Take a tour of Charles Dickens' London

Much of Dickens' fiction concerns Victorian London and its people. This tour of the city, led by Dickens biographer Simon Callow, walks you through significant sites, like the place where Dickens' parents were married, the shoe-blacking factory where he worked as a boy, and the place where he created his first magazine.

The lifestyles of early humans

For 2.5 million years, humans lived on Earth without leaving a written record of their lives—but they left behind other kinds of remains and artifacts.

Machu Picchu before it was a tourist attraction

The Machu Picchu we know today is familiar thanks to its neatly manicured plazas, lovingly preserved stone buildings, and ever-present hordes of tourists. But that’s not what Hiram Bingham saw when Melchor Arteaga led him to the site in 1911. Back then, it lay covered by centuries of tropical overgrowth.

View a collection of glass sculptures of corals threatened by fishing and deep-sea mining

In "Depicting Dark Waters," British sculptural model maker Alice Baker depicts European cold-water corals, which make up 65% of all known coral species, to raise awareness of deep-sea ecosystems threatened by commercial and industrial activities. The project involved a collaboration with marine biologists from the Netherlands and Sweden.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'