Work to shore up Pompeii unearths further treasures

Pompeii is experiencing the makings of a rebirth after decades of neglect. Within just a few hours in AD79, it was turned from a vibrant city into an ashembalmed wasteland, smothered by a furious eruption from the volcano Vesuvius.

Then in this century, the excavated Roman city appeared alarmingly close to a second death, assailed by mismanagement and scant systematic maintenance of the heavily visited ruins.

The 2010 collapse of a hall where gladiators trained nearly cost Pompeii its coveted Unesco World Heritage Site status.

But excavations undertaken as part of engineering stabilisation efforts to prevent new collapses are now yielding a raft of revelations about the everyday lives of Pompeii’s residents, as the lens of social class analysis is increasingly applied to new discoveries.

Under the archaeological park’s new director Gabriel Zuchtriegel, innovative technology is helping restore some of Pompeii’s nearly obliterated glories and limit the effects of a new threat – climate change.

The Great Pompeii Project, an infusion of about € 105 million (£85.4m) in EU funds – on condition it is spent promptly and effectively by 2016 – helped spare the ruins from further degradation.

Near the end of Via del Vesuvio, one of Pompeii’s stone-paved streets, work in 2018 revealed an upscale domus, or home, with a bedroom wall decorated with a small, sensual fresco.

It depicts the Roman god Jupiter disguised as a swan and impregnating Leda, the mythical queen of Sparta and mother of Helen of Troy.

Nearby is the most crowd-pleasing discovery to emerge from the shoring-up project – a corner “thermopolium” with a counter-top set-up like the familiar salad-and-soup bar arrangements of our times.

This fast-food locale is the only one discovered with frescoes in vivid hues of mustard-yellow and the omnipresent Pompeii red decorating the counter’s base – apparently advertising the chef’s specialities.

Judging by the organic remains found in containers, the menu featured concoctions with ingredients like fish, snails and goat meat.

Quick street meals were likely a mainstay of the vast majority of Pompeiians not affluent enough to have kitchens.

ANCIENT: A fresco depicting a poet in Pompeii, a Unesco World Heritage Site which has benefited from investment.

A restorer at work on an unearthed wall at the site.