More than 100 years after the discovery of the Villa of the Mysteries, a major new fresco sheds light on the mysteries of Dionysus in the classical world. In a large banquet hall excavated in recent weeks in the central area of Pompeii, in insula 10 of Regio IX, an almost life-size frieze, or “megalography” (from the Greek for “large painting”-a cycle of large-figure paintings), has emerged, circling around three sides of the room; the fourth was open to the garden.
The frieze shows the procession of Dionysus, god of wine: bacchants depicted as dancers, but also as fierce hunters, with a slaughtered kid on their shoulders or with a sword and the entrails of an animal in their hands; young satyrs with pointed ears playing the double flute, while another performs a wine sacrifice (libation) in acrobatic style, pouring a stream of wine from a potentory horn (used for drinking) behind his own shoulders into a patera (shallow cup). In the center of the composition is a woman with an old Silenus holding a flashlight: she is an initianda, that is, a mortal woman who, through a nocturnal ritual, is about to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies and is reborn, promising as much to his followers.
A curious detail is that all the figures in the frieze are depicted on pedestals, as if they were statues, while at the same time their movements, complexions, and clothing make them appear very much alive.
Archaeologists have christened the dwelling with the frieze the “House of Thiasos,” referring to the procession of Dionysus. In antiquity there were a number of cults, including that of Dionysus, which were accessible only to those who performed an initiation ritual, as suggested in the Pompeii frieze. Such cults were called “mystery” cults because only initiates could know their secrets. They were often linked to the promise of a new blissful life, either in this world or in the afterlife.
The frieze discovered in Pompeii is attributable to the 2nd Style of Pompeian painting, which dates back to the 1st century BC. More precisely, the frieze can be dated to the years 40-30 BCE. This means that by the time of the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii in 79 AD under lapilli and ash, the Dionysian frieze was already about a century old.
The only other example of a megalography with depictions of similar rituals is the frieze known as “of the Mysteries” in the villa of the same name outside the gates of Pompeii, also in the Pompeian II Style.
The new frieze found in Pompeii, compared to the villa of the Mysteries, adds another theme to the imagery of Dionysus' initiatory rituals: hunting, which is evoked not only by the hunter bacchae, but also by a second, smaller frieze that runs above the one with bacchae and satyrs: here live and dead animals are depicted, including a fawn and a freshly eviscerated boar, roosters, various birds, as well as fish and shellfish.
“In 100 years' time, today's day will be experienced as historic, because historic is the discovery we are showing,” says Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, ”The megalography found in insula 10 of Regio IX opens another glimpse into the rituals of the mysteries of Dionysus. It is an exceptional historical document and, together with that of the Villa of the Mysteries, constitute a one-of-a-kind, making Pompeii an extraordinary testimony to a largely unknown aspect of Mediterranean classical life.
All of this makes the resumption of excavation activities in Pompeii important and valuable, which the government wholeheartedly supports and for which it recently allocated 33 million euros for excavation, planned maintenance, restoration and enhancement works at this site and in the surrounding area. We are living an important moment for Italian and world archaeology, which has also registered a strong increase in visitors, starting with this Archaeological Park: more than 4 million 87 thousand admissions in 2023 and 4 million 177 thousand in 2024.”
“The hunt for the Bacchae of Dionysus,” explains Pompeii Archaeological Park Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel, co-author of an initial study of the new find published in the E-Journal of Pompeii Excavations, ‘starting with Euripides’ ‘Bacchae’ from 405 BC, one of the most beloved tragedies of antiquity, becomes a metaphor for an unrestrained, ecstatic life that aims at 'something different, something great and something visible,' as the chorus in Euripides' text puts it. For the ancients, the bacchante expressed the wild and untamable side of woman; the woman who abandons her children, home and city, who steps out of the male order, to dance free, go hunting and eat raw meat in the mountains and forests; in short, the opposite of the 'pretty' woman, who emulates Venus, goddess of love and marriage, the woman who looks at herself in the mirror, who 'makes herself beautiful. Both the frieze of the House of Thiassus and that of the Mysteries show woman as suspended, as oscillating between these two extremes, two modes of female being in those times. They are frescoes with a deeply religious meaning, but here they were meant to adorn spaces for banquets and feasts... a bit like when we find a copy of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on a wall of an Italian restaurant in New York, to create some atmosphere. Behind these marvelous paintings, with their play with illusion and reality, we can see signs of a religious crisis that was sweeping the ancient world, but we can also grasp in them the grandeur of a ritual that goes back to an archaic world, at least as far as the second millennium B.C., to the Dionysus of the Mycenaean and Cretan peoples, who was also called Zagreus, lord of the wild animals.”
The environment of the Dionysian Thiasos will be on view for the public as of now as part of the site visits, which have already been underway since the beginning of the excavation for the various rooms being investigated as the excavation progresses.
Every day from Monday to Friday at 11 a.m. - with prior reservation at 327 2716666 - it will be possible to enter in two groups of 15 people, accompanied by site personnel who will explain the main findings and environments that have emerged and the excavation methodology. To access the visits it will be necessary to have the regular entrance ticket to the archaeological park.
Investigations in the so-called Regio IX of Pompeii-one of the nine districts into which the site is divided-began in February 2023, in an area covering about 3,200 square meters, almost an entire city block of the ancient city buried in 79 AD by Vesuvius. Today, the construction site is in its final phase, which includes the last safety works, after which an enhancement project will also allow a future permanent use of the area by all visitors.
The project of “Excavation, securing and restoration of Insula 10 Regio IX” had been undertaken for the purpose of reconnecting with the urban fabric of via di Nola and reducing risks related to climate change.
The excavation, in which more than 50 new rooms distributed over an area of more than 1,500 m2 were identified, returned two atrium houses, already partially investigated in the 800s, built in the Samnite age and transformed in the first century AD into production workshops: a fullonica (laundry) and a bakery with an oven, with spaces for millstones and rooms for processing food products to be distributed in the city.
South of these two house-workshops a number of living quarters, pertaining to a large domus, have emerged. These include, in addition to the large room with Dionysian scenes, a black hall with scenes from the Trojan saga; a blue-bottomed shrine with the four seasons and allegories of agriculture and pastoralism; and a large bath quarter. The entrance, atrium quarter and much of the peristyle (colonnaded garden) remain unexplored.
Source: Parco Archeologico di Pompei