Archaeologists in Pompeii have unveiled an ancient Roman banquet hall featuring a cleverly conceived set of frescoes inspired by tales of the Trojan War.
The 50-by-20-foot (15-by-6-meter) room was recently unearthed as part of a project aimed at shoring up the front of a perimeter between the excavated and not-yet-excavated areas of the Pompeii site near Naples, Italy. Pompeii’s archaeological park preserves sites that were buried in ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79.
During Pompeii’s heyday, the “Black Room” opened onto an open courtyard with a long staircase leading up to the home’s first floor.
The banquet room’s frescoes — portraying heroes and deities associated with the Trojan War — were apparently meant to entertain banquet guests and serve as conversation starters. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said the frescoes took advantage of painterly tricks to serve that purpose.
“The walls were painted black to prevent the smoke from the oil lamps being seen on the walls,” Zuchtriegel explained in a news release. “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.”
One painting shows Helen of Troy, the woman with “the face that launched a thousand ships,” according to the English playwright Christopher Marlowe; and Paris, the prince whose rash love affair with Helen sparked the Trojan War, according to Homer’s Iliad.
Another painting shows Cassandra, the ill-fated prophetess of the Iliad, together with Apollo, who cursed her for refusing his advances.
“The mythological couples provided ideas for conversations about the past and life, only seemingly of a merely romantic nature,” Zuchtriegel said. “In reality, they refer to the relationship between the individual and fate: Cassandra who can see the future but no one believes her; Apollo who sides with the Trojans against the Greek invaders, but being a god, cannot ensure victory; Helen and Paris who, despite their politically incorrect love affair, are the cause of the war, or perhaps merely a pretext. Who knows?”
Zuchtriegel went on to link those myths to modern travails.
“These days, Helen and Paris represent us all,” he said. “Each day we can choose whether to focus solely on our own private lives or whether to explore the way our lives are entangled with the broad sweep of history, thinking for example, not just of war and politics, or of the environment, but also of the atmosphere we are creating in our society, communicating with others in real time and on social networks.”
In addition to the decorated walls, excavators found a huge pile of building materials that had been set aside beneath the arches of the staircase. Two pairs of gladiators, plus what appears to be an “enormous stylized phallus,” were drawn in charcoal on the plaster of the arches while it was fresh, according to the park’s news release.
Excavations are continuing, and the Black Room isn’t yet open to the public. But you can take a look at these other pictures released by the archaeological park. (Sorry, no phallus.)
