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The finding allows to illustrate the life of a sector of the population “little represented in the sources”
The archaeological site of Pompeii (southern Italy) never ceases to amaze. This Saturday announced the discovery of several apartments typical of the “middle class” with cabinets full of objects locked from the eruption that devastated the city two millennia ago.
The director of the archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, explained in a statement that the discovery of these furnished rooms offers information on the middle and lower classes of Pompeii, “the majority of its population but underrepresented in the sources”.
The excavation revolves around what is known as House of the Lararium, a luxurious sacred space that saw the light in 2018, and the experts have now entered four of the rooms that it included, two on the first floor and another two on the ground floor, at street level.
Inside they have come across lots of furniture and objects that allow to illustrate the life of the Pompeian “middle class” at the moment that everything ended, when the Vesuvius volcano erupted in the year 79 AD, burying this Roman colony for almost two millennia.
In one of the rooms, simple and with clay floor, perhaps a pantry, a cupboard with five shelves and two meters high appeared that still preserves everyday objects such as vasos, plates, ceramics, small containers and amphorae.
The closet is in eThe exact place it occupied at the time of the eruption and it is partly broken because the weight of the pyroplastic material caused the roof of the house to collapse.
Experts will continue to investigate what the ash hides on its lower ledges, little by little to protect it.
Bed, table and trunk
In another small room with no decoration on its walls, you can see a simple bed with part of its pillow, a three-legged table with a glass on top and an open trunk, as it is believed that it was emptied by its owner when escaping from the fire.
The type of bed is identical to the one found last year in the slave room of the “Civita Giuluana” villa, free of any decoration, detachable and without mattress, only with a net of ropes.
Inside the trunk was found a small ceramic plate used for eating and an oil lamp with a bas-relief depicting the God Zeus turning into an eagle
In another of the rooms on the first floor, another cupboard has been found with plates and glasses for domestic use, a bronze basin and a “perfume burner” or “perfumer” in optimal state of conservation.
“In the Roman Empire there was a wide swath of the population who fought for their own social status (…), a vulnerable class in political crises and famines but ambitious when it comes to climbing socially,” Zuchtriegel explained.
That is why it is assumed that the inhabitants of the Casa del Larario lived with that same prosperity ambition. Although some rooms appear decorated and have some precious objects, in others wooden furniture has appeared. “extreme simplicity”.
A wonderful decoration
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“We do not know the inhabitants of the house but surely the leisure culture on which the wonderful decoration of the patio is inspired represents a future that they dreamed of rather than a lived reality”, pointed out the director of the site.
The Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, celebrated this news: “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 extraordinary results”.