‘Enchanted’ frescoes unearthed in Pompeii

STUNNING frescoes in a Roman villa depicting peacocks, writhing snakes and a wild boar being hunted by dogs have been discovered in Pompeii, 2,000 years after the city was buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

Archeologists at the villa, nicknamed “The House of the Enchanted Garden” for the variety of animals and plants that decorate its walls, in blood-red paint almost as lustrous as before the villa was smothered in AD79, discovered a lararium or altar in one of the walls, guarded by two serpents to ward off evil spirits.

“It is a marvellous and enigmatic space,” said Massimo Osanna, the site’s director. “It will need to be studied.”

The frescoes include the figure of a horse, birds in flight and a strange human figure with a dog’s head.

As part of the Great Pompeii Project, areas that have never before been dug, or which were partially excavated in the 19th century, are being explored.

The bright red walls of the villa are covered in frescoes of animals such as peacocks, snakes and wild boar