Pompeii’s ‘exquisite’ and pristine frescoes a generational discovery
Archaeologists have discovered pristine fresco in what they believe to be a once in a lifetime find at a new site in Pompeii.
During a dig at the ancient city, which was buried following an eruption from Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, archaeologists found frescoes depicting figures such as Helen of Troy along the black walls of a banquet hall.
The room floor comprises of more than a million white tiles in what writer and host of the ‘The Ancients Podcast’, Tristan Hughes told i, proves Pompeii is the “archaeological gift that keeps on giving”.
“Frescoes like this amazing new discovery would have adorned many elite villas of Pompeii, often in public dining rooms and entrance ways,” he told i. “They were a highly-sought after type of Roman art; wealthy Romans decorated their homes with them, often to showcase their wealth and culture to visiting guests.”
Other scenes adorning the banquet hall wall or “black room” show Apollo trying to seduce the priestess Cassandra and Greek myths including Leda and the Swan, of which Zeus took the form in order to seduce Leda.
“The owner of the villa must have known his Homer and wanted to prove this to his dinner guests!” classicist Daisy Dunn told i.
According to Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, the reason the walls were painted black was “to prevent the smoke from the oil lamps from being seen on the walls.”
“People would meet to dine after sunset; the flickering light of the lamps had the effect of making the images appear to move, especially after a few glasses of good Campanian wine,” Mr Zuchtriegel added.
The room is about fifteen metres long and six metres wide and opens into a courtyard. The excavation is part of a larger project to shore up the perimeter between the excavated and unexcavated areas. The excavation so far has revealed two interconnected houses with frescoed living rooms behind them, including a bakery and laundry.
The frescos have managed to stay so preserved because the villa in which they were found has been covered over for nearly 2 millennia. Up to a third of Pompeii is still unexcavated.
For Dr. Allison Emmerson, a Roman archaeologist at Tulane University, what’s most interesting about the discovery is what it implies about social interactions in Pompeii.
“Here we have a very elaborate elite home as part of a complex that includes also very low status spaces – a laundry and a bakery where enslaved workers were locked together with animals,” she told i.
“The find emphasizes the constant interaction of social classes in Pompeii, with the lower classes and the enslaved guaranteeing the lifestyle of the upper class, and the brutality of control the upper class could use to preserve that situation.”
There’s no set time for when the discovery will be viewable by the public, but Emmerson anticipates that would be after the room has been fully studied, conserved, and protected from degradation.
The 12 month excavation will feature in a documentary series from BBC and Lion TV and will be released later in April.
