Pompeii

A fresco of ‘Europa and the bull’, from a house in Pompeii, Italy, which was buried for over a thousand years under volcanic ash. Paintings, furniture, and other everyday items were discovered at Pompeii, giving a view of Roman life in the 1st century.

The myth of Perseus and Andromeda, as illustrated on the peristyle (colonnade) of a building in Pompeii, Italy, around AD 50–79.

A wall-painting, found in a house in the northwestern corner of Pompeii, Italy (nearest the volcano Vesuvius). The painting shows a girl with a stylus and tablet.

A fine example of Roman mosaic work that was found in a house in Pompeii, Italy. Mosaic was an art form at which the Romans truly excelled. This example has come to be known as Cave canem! (‘Beware of the Dog!’), although the animal in question does not look particularly ferocious and is on a strong lead.

The famous ‘Alexander mosaic’ at Pompeii, Italy, dating from the early 1st century BC and depicting the Battle of Issus between Alexander the Great and the Persian King Darius III. Its historical subject and its pictorial quality suggest not only a strong Hellenic influence, but also that it was copied from a painting executed by Philoxenos in about 300 BC, which was well known in the ancient world but has since been lost.

A mural in Pompeii, Italy, dating from the 1st century, showing the Trojan hero Aeneas receiving treatment for a wound. His mother, the Greek goddess Aphrodite, looks on anxiously. But Aeneas was also a hero to the Romans, for in eventually becoming a prince of Latium (an ancient territory in Italy), he could be said to be Rome's earliest historical ruler.

A mural in the Villa of the Mysteries just outside the walls to the northwest of old Pompeii, Italy. The villa was evidently a religious establishment devoted to the worship of the god Pan, for in the mural a priest plays the syrinx (panpipes) in the presence of Pan's animals, the goats, while a priestess enacts terror, thus explaining the derivation of the English word ‘panic’.

An archaeological storeroom at the excavations in Pompeii, Italy, in which amphorae (two-handled narrow-necked jars) line one wall, vases and odd capitals (upper parts of columns) take up floor space, and plaster casts of body shapes lie on trestle tables. Archaeology does not merely consist of digging up and displaying material. A considerable amount of sorting, examining, and comparing on site is essential.

A mural in Pompeii, Italy, showing a baker's shop, with eager customers in front, and further supplies in the background. There is a good sense of three-dimensional realism about the scene, which suggests that it is meant more as a wall-picture than as a sales poster or advertisement.

When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the Italian city of Herculaneum was buried with lava and hot ash in a manner completely different from Pompeii, which was twice the distance away from the volcano. Herculaneum was probably better preserved because of this, and also because of the unusual humidity of the area, but excavation of the city is more difficult.

A mural in Pompeii, Italy, depicting the marriage of Alexander the Great to Barsine (also called Stateira), daughter of the Persian ruler Darius III, in 324 BC. The couple are apparently dressed as Ares and Aphrodite (divinities of war and love, respectively), which is no doubt appropriate to the way they thought of themselves, but mythologically inept – as Pompeiians would have known.

Ancient city in Italy, near the volcano Vesuvius, 21 km/13 mi southeast of Naples.

In AD 63 an earthquake destroyed much of the city, which had been a Roman port and pleasure resort; it was completely buried beneath volcanic ash when Vesuvius, a composite – and therefore explosive – volcano erupted in AD 79. Over 2,000 people were killed. Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748 and the systematic excavation begun in 1763 still continues.