Region 9 has thrown up a detective story for archaeologists.

April 11, 2024 11:59 AM

Pompeii: Breathtaking new paintings found at ancient city A wide residential and commercial block, known as "Region 9", is being cleared of several metres of overlying pumice and ash thrown out by Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago.(Pompeii previously)
posted by bq (22 comments total)

Certainly no mystery that there were doggos back then who were clearly Good Doggos.
posted by The otter lady at 1:09 PM on April 11 [10 favorites]

I visited Pompeii last month so it's great to see this discovery in the news. These frescoes look spectacular.

That being said, if you do go to Pompeii, make sure to get the additional tour that includes the Villa of the Mysteries, which is located outside the town proper. The pictures of the frescoes in the Wikipedia article don't do it it justice; they pop off the wall. I understand there has been restoration work but it's amazing to see 2,000 year old artwork, period.

Also, no matter how many times you've read about them, the preserved plaster casts of the volcano victims are heartrending and deeply affecting. We had to leave the Garden of the Fugitives after only a couple of minutes, it's downright unsettling to see people preserved in the moment of their final agony, down to the straps of their sandals and folds of their clothes.
posted by fortitude25 at 1:09 PM on April 11 [17 favorites]

This is the first time I’ve seen the epithet Alexander used to refer to Paris (in the picture at the top of the article, with Helen).
posted by stopgap at 1:47 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I traveled to Dallas with my family to see the AD 79 traveling Pompeii museum show, probably in 1979 so I was a young kid. It's sort of haunted me ever since. My parents have been to actual Pompeii a couple of of times, once before I was born and again after I left the house.

My understanding is that a surprisingly small amount of the city has actually been excavated and that there is a ton of archeological work to be done all across the Vesuvius eruption plain. Digging down through this with care costs a shitload of money and so it isn't done quickly or in any real kind of scale.

Villa Of The Mysteries is a thing I've known about all my life, but have never visited. I think I have ViewMaster reels of there?
posted by hippybear at 1:49 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

That mosaic floor with ~1m-3m tiles is mind blowing
posted by Gorgik at 1:52 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]

As much as I don't like the looting of other countries for our museums, the Getty Museum in LA that is full of old world objects is a beautifully built location and is a really rich day of museuming. We even took the bus there and back from mr hippybear's place in Marina Del Rey when he was working there for a while.

I would truly love to go to Pompeii someday. Maybe I should start planning for that. By the time I get there, who knows what other treasures they might have unearthed?
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

The Getty Villa Museum, that's the one I'm thinking of.
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on April 11

Having seen the like across many cultures, including pictograms in the deserts of California and Arizona, I was comforted by the humanistic consistency shown by the discovery of phallic graffiti
posted by Jarcat at 2:06 PM on April 11 [8 favorites]

It turns out that shitposting is a human tradition going back millenia.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:26 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

History is cool, man
posted by Going To Maine at 2:26 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

It's so much fun to see how that depiction of Apollo still comes across as a dude being all "Hey, babe". The nonchalant way he crosses his legs, and the way he leans on his lyre... it still works. And apparently a picture of an attractive man in that day and age did not need to show him as having a large penis.

If someone were to create a similar image today, I can't help but think that he would probably be wearing some kind of underwear or swimming trunks (we've grown so prudish lately) and showing a big bulge (the beauty standards have indeed changed, and everything is heavily sexualized).

These are prudish times, and at the same time also sexualized. It's a weird combination. But that's how I see it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:45 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

When I was 19, my parents took me on a Mediterranean cruise that included Naples and we went on a tour of Pompeii. Forty-five years later I remember the sense that the inhabitants were still present. I think we all seem to forget that our ancestors were much the same as we are now, with the same thoughts, concerns, and activities: working, cooking, having parties, whatever.

It's impossible to forget that in Pompeii. In the moments before the eruption, someone's toddler was refusing to eat breakfast; someone was rushing to get to a job on time; someone was arranging the produce on display; someone was hoping a beloved would look or touch. I've been to places where there are historical reenactments (the Fortress of Louisbourg was superb decades ago; I hope it hasn't diminished) but it's hardly necessary in Pompeii.

My dad and I went on a guided walk of the area around Vesuvius. The tour guide stopped at one point, picked up a melon-sized rock, and threw it on the ground. We could feel the vibrations in our feet, the ground was so thin. And then we looked down the hill at Naples, clustered around the foot of the volcano, and thought, "Really? You'd build here again?"
posted by angiep at 3:43 PM on April 11 [14 favorites]

that depiction of Apollo still comes across as a dude

Equally, Cassandra's expression is totally, "this fucking guy again."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:32 PM on April 11 [7 favorites]

I, too, am very impressed that Apollō, the most beautiful god, is obviously very comfortable with what he's got.
posted by meehawl at 4:36 PM on April 11

Nearly lost our two eldest children, (who were old enough to know better), when we went to Pompeii. It was still so awesome. Those poor people. Just, nope, no chance.

Poor doggos...
posted by Windopaene at 4:43 PM on April 11

Too-Ticky: This is a deliberate and symbolic choice by the painter! In ancient Hellenic and Roman art, generally speaking, smaller & flaccid penises were used in art to portray men as having intelligence, civilization, & self-control. (Both civilizations were also suuuuuuper fond of portraying giant-ass erect dicks! But they put those on "stupid" or "savage" men, and on explicitly pornographic art.)

(Mind you, narratively speaking Apollo didn't actually have all that much self-control, as we can see in the subject of this very fresco! But you wouldn't want to go around insulting one of the deathless gods in your wall art, either.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:13 PM on April 11 [12 favorites]

I think we all seem to forget that our ancestors were much the same as we are now, with the same thoughts, concerns, and activities: working, cooking, having parties, whatever.

I'm reminded of this comment I favored a few years ago (about Ostia, not Pompeii, but similar vibe).
posted by fings at 6:41 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
posted by fruitslinger at 7:51 PM on April 11

If you do get to visit Pompeii (and I hope you do, it's great), don't neglect to visit also the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. It's where a ton of the stuff that's been dug up in Pompeii and Herculaneum has ended up on display—including one memorable room that shows just how obsessed the Romans were with phalluses. Graffiti on the walls ain't the half of it.
posted by rory at 11:06 PM on April 11 [5 favorites]

If anyone wants information on the penis in Greco-Roman art, this article The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme might be interesting. A penis with a distinctly tapered, conical foreskin (prepuce) seems to have considered ideal.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:44 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]

the way he leans on his lyre... it still works.

I expect it would have looked stupid to Romans if that were something impossible, like a modern painting of a dude being all hey how you doin' while leaning on I dunno a frosty from wendys. But I would not have thought you could really lean on a lyre.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:45 AM on April 12

Romans were indeed obsessed! Little amulets called fascina (singular fascinum (or fascinus, it's a weird word)) in the shape of tiny cocks-and-balls with wings were used to ward off evil enchantments! (They're actually really adorable?)

(The word "fascinating" ultimately comes from these little amulets and the practice of using them for magic.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:50 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]