In Pompeii, archaeologists and scholars did not stop the excavations even during the lockdown and a Thermopolium has come to light intact, after 2000 years of darkness. Wow! 😵
The findings
The discovery of the ancient place left us truly amazed.
Scholars have found an inscription scratched on the counter of the thermopolium (“Nicia, cinede cacator” or Nicia, perverted shitter) and the image of a black dog on a leash, as if to say “beware of the dog” .
In the Garden House, then, there is a charcoal writing that rewrites the story.
Pompeii, the latest discovery
Massimo Osanna, director of the Archaeological Park, showed the latest findings yesterday evening on Rai 2 in the extraordinary documentary: “Pompei ultima scoperta” . The excavations, started in 2018, have offered a new reading of the eruption of Vesuvius.
Massimo Osanna's words illustrated the great work of a multidisciplinary team, carried out with professionals in the fields of physical anthropology, archaeobotany, archaeology, archaeozoology, volcanology and geology.
This time the excavations of Pompeii gave us much more than a surprise: food remains in pots, eyebrow tweezers and precision scales, bowls, magnificent and colorful larariums.
The real date of the eruption
It is the victims' clothes that provide precious details.
Some bodies are wrapped in woolen cloaks. This detail does not fit with the writings of Pliny the Younger, who places the event in nonum kal. Septembres . Pliny appears to be referring to nine days before the Kalends of September (August 24).
Furthermore, in 2018 a charcoal inscription was found. The writing is dated to the sixteenth day before the calends of November corresponding to October 17. Since it is charcoal it could not have lasted long and it is likely that the writing dates back to the week before the eruption.
Was there an error in the transcription of Pliny's writings? It is very probable, therefore, that the date of the eruption – says Massimo Osanna – is October 24, 79 AD
This new date – which scholars consider more plausible – is in line with many other finds, such as remains of pomegranates, grapes and walnuts, which are harvested in autumn.
The Souls of Pompeii
The human passions that blew through the streets and squares of ancient Pompeii resurface in the alleys cleared by the pumice of the pyroclastic currents, where wall posters of the electoral campaign still ask: “Vote for Albucio and Elvio Sabino”.
Another house also has a taunting inscription against a woman engraved on it.
But it is something else that moves us. The anthropologist, Dr. Amoretti, has identified almost ten individuals in the Skeleton Room: three women and all children, crowded together in the same room. Perhaps this room, with a more solid roof than the others, was also used as a shelter for those who were not part of the family. It probably welcomed women and children fleeing through the streets of Pompeii in the moment of pause between the first pyroclastic current and the second, more violent one, which swept everything away.
The latest bodies to emerge show faces, sometimes desperate facial expressions, and we approach them – despite the surprise of the discovery and the enthusiasm of the find – with silent respect.