Pompeii dig finds slaves had Ikea-style beds
ARCHAEOLOGISTS at Pompeii have unearthed 2,000-year-old extendable beds likened to Ikea furniture for the ancient world.
The beds, made of wooden planks that could be adjusted according to the height of the person sleeping in them, were found in a cramped room that was once inhabited by slaves.
It offers a rare insight into the hard lives of the people who lived on the very lowest rung of ancient Roman society. The room contains a chamber pot and a cluster of eight amphorae, as well as three rudimentary beds – two for adults and a smaller one for a child. “While two of them are about 1.7 metres long (5ft 7in), one bed measures just 1.4 metres and may therefore have belonged to a young man or child,” archaeologists said as they announced the discovery.
The slaves’ room is part of a once lavish villa known as Civita Giuliana, located on the outskirts of Pompeii, which was buried in ash and volcanic debris when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.
Inside the slaves’ quarters, archaeologists discovered the remains of horse harnesses and the shaft from a chariot, suggesting that the slaves’ job was to look after the wealthy Roman family’s stables. Baskets would have held the slaves’ few meagre possessions.
The “exceptionally well-preserved” room is close to where archeologists discovered the remains of a fourwheeled ceremonial chariot, decorated with male and female erotic figures, in February this year.
The chariot was found in a portico facing a stable where the remains of three horses were found in 2018.
“This is a window into the precarious reality of people who seldom appear in historical sources (because they) were written almost exclusively by men belonging to the elite, and who as a result risk remaining invisible in historical accounts,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the Pompeii archaeological site.