Interdisciplinary reading of the restoration and musealization history of Pompeii: The Herculaneum gate as a heritage environment system

Pompeii is fragmented. This not only refers to the city’s partial ruins, inevitable deterioration, inappropriate and sometimes inventive restoration, and physical dislocation of objects, but also the compart - mentalization of knowledge. This fragmentation presents challenges for the long-term sustainable conservation of the site. Pompeii Arch&Lab, an in terdisciplinary project of the Fraunhofer Institut für Bauphysik in Munich/Holzkirchen and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut, conducted research to contribute to a more holistic understanding of Pompeii’s "life" in the post-excavation period. The concept of "heritage environment system" presented in this contribution provides a framework for interdisciplinary research, bringing together the various layers and facets of Pompeii’s vast and complex patrimony - its transformation over the years, the artifacts and relics preserved elsewhere, and the physicality and materiality of the ruins as well as their intangible dimensions including their reception in the human sciences, literature, and art. The Herculaneum Gate and its surroundings were chosen as a case study to show the potential for a "de-fragmentation" of the site within the framework of a "heritage environment system" in which reception, conservation, and musealization are closely intertwined and interdependent. This study aims to show the added value of interdisciplinary "readings" of heritage sites, and provides new tools and concepts that can be applied to the conservation of historical monuments and archaeological sites worldwide.