POMPEII, Italy, Jan 19 (Reuters) – A love note, a gladiatorial combat scene, a barrage of insults and everyday confessions have appeared on a wall in Pompeii, thanks to new imaging technology that has revealed almost 80 never-before-seen inscriptions.
The once-thriving city of Pompeii, near Naples, was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, preserving buildings, objects and graffiti under meters of ash.
Rediscovered in the 18th century, today it is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
Take advantage of the stock market rise!
The latest discoveries were etched into the plaster of a long corridor that connected Pompeii’s theaters to the city’s busy Via Stabiana, first discovered more than 230 years ago.
Researchers used a computational photography method known as Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), which captures images under various lighting angles, to expose faint scratches invisible to the naked eye after centuries of erosion.
Archaeologists did not expect new discoveries on a surface considered to be meticulously documented, but their work identified around 300 inscriptions, 79 of them previously unpublished.
Continues after advertising
The so-called ‘corridor whispers’ project was developed by researchers Louis Autin and Eloïse Letellier-Taillefer, from the Sorbonne University in Paris, and Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, from the University of Quebec, in cooperation with Pompeii authorities.
“This technology is the key that opens new rooms of the ancient world,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the vast archaeological site, adding that Pompeii’s more than 10,000 known inscriptions form an “immense heritage” of the ancient world.
The team is developing a 3D platform that will combine photogrammetry, RTI data, and epigraphic metadata to enable full visualizationand annotation of graffiti.
Examples of well-known texts include a hurried farewell to love – – ‘I’m in a hurry. Goodbye, Sava, be sure that you love me!’. Another inscription records the devotion of Methe, a slave of Atella, to her beloved Chrestus, with an appeal to the favor of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
Among the new discoveries is a faint sketch of two gladiators fighting and the beginning of a declaration of love — ‘Erato ama…’.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer)
