Report by Prashasti Kulkarni
Recently, a painting was discovered among the ruins of Pompeii, an ancient town located in Italy, during excavations in an area of Pompeii’s archaeological park.
The painting, estimated to be nearly 2500 years old, depicted a lavish meal with a pizza-like bread, that, reportedly, is the ancestor of pizza itself since nearby town Naples is where the Margharita pizza was supposedly discovered, around the 1800s.
Apart from the apparent pizza, a metal goblet of wine and a fruit-looking item is shown as well. This painting helps archaeologists get more insight into what people ate back then, as well as the utensils and tools they used.
This painting is known as a fresco, which is a painting done on a wall or a ceiling. The wall on which the fresco is located is believed to have been the corridor of a house that had a bakery in its annexe.
About Pompeii
Pompeii, once believed to be a flourishing town, is located near the now-dormant Mt. Vesuvius, in the city of Campania, Italy. On 24th August, 79 AD, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried the town and its people in layers and layers of ash and mud. As the years passed, the town was practically forgotten. Nearly 2,000 years later, an archeologist named Domenico Fontana unearthed some parts of the town in the late 16th century. The excavation officially started a few years later and there are more things being discovered about it to this day, like the fresco.