A group of researchers working at the archaeological site of Pompeiisouth of Italy, announced this on discovery of several furnished rooms “typical of the middle class”with cabinets full of objects that were closed since the eruption that devastated the city two millennia ago and that now allow us to discover how these social sectors lived.
The discovery was made in the excavation that a group of researchers is carrying out in the surroundings of the “House of the Lararium”a luxurious sacred space that saw the light in 2018. In this new stage, the experts have delved into four of the rooms that includes the spacetwo on the first floor and another two on the ground floor.
The director of the archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, explained in a statement that the discovery of these furnished rooms offers insight into Pompeii’s lower and middle classes, “most of its population but underrepresented in the sources”the moment it all ended, when the Vesuvius volcano erupted in 79 AD, burying this Roman colony for almost two millennia.
The new find in Pompeii
Inside one of the rooms, simple and with a beaten earth floor, a five shelf cupboard and two meters high that still preserves everyday objects such as glasses, plates, ceramics, small containers and amphorae. The researchers think that this space could have functioned as a pantry.
The cabinet is in the exact place it was at the time of the eruption and one part is broken because the weight of the pyroplastic material caused the roof of the house to collapse. The experts, reported Zuchtriegel, will continue to investigate what the ash hides on its lower shelves.
In another room of small dimensions, without decoration on its walls, a simple bed with part of its pillow a three legged table with a cup on it and an open trunkwhich is believed to have been emptied by its owner when escaping from the fire.
The type of bed is identical to the one found last year in the room of the slaves of the villa “Civita Giuluana”exempt from any decoration, removable and without a mattress, only with a network of ropes.
In the trunk, investigators found a small ceramic plate used for eating and an oil lamp with a bas-relief in which the god Zeus is represented turning into an eagle.
In another of the rooms on the first floor, another cupboard was found with plates and glasses for domestic use, a bronze basin and a “perfume burner” or “perfumer” in excellent condition.
Struggle for social status
“In the Roman empire there was a wide swath of the population fighting for their own social status (…), a vulnerable class in political crises and famines but ambitious when it comes to social climbingZuchtriegel explained.
That is why it is assumed that the residents of the Casa del Larario lived with the same ambition for prosperity, given that although some rooms appear decorated and have some precious objects, in others wooden furniture of “extreme simplicity” has appeared.
“We don’t know the inhabitants of the house but surely the culture of leisure that inspires the wonderful decoration of the patio represents a future they dreamed of more than a lived reality“, reflected the director of the site.
Regarding the discovery, the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, stressed that “Pompeii never ceases to amaze and is a beautiful story of recovery, proof that if Italy works as a team and invests in young people, research and innovation achieve results extraordinary”.
Sexism in food
This type of excavation has a great historical value since from them you can reconstruct information that was lost over time.
Last year, for example, a group of archaeologists examining the skeletal remains of victims of the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius in Herculaneum discovered that the ancient romans had a diet differentiated by sexwhere women ate more animal products and locally grown fruits and vegetables, while men accessed more expensive foods, such as fish.
This could be determined from a study led by the BioArCh team at the University of York, in the United Kingdom, where a group of researchers developed a new approach to analyze the amino acidsthe building blocks of proteins, 17 skeletons of adults found after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD