A fresco discovered in Pompeii shows a sumptuous meal with a pizza-like bread in its center, which archaeologists believe could be a precursor to Italy’s iconic dish. The food item, presented alongside a goblet of wine and pineapple fruit, however, lacks classic pizza ingredients such as tomato and mozzarella.
The 2,000-year-old fresco was discovered during excavations in the Regio IX area of the Pompeii Archaeological Park near Naples, the home of the famous margherita pizza, believed to have been invented in the 1800s. “The image evokes a pizza [especially] since we are near Naples. Obviously, it is not a pizza but perhaps it could have been a distant ancestor of this food, ”explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, in an online film.
The image is believed to be focaccia-style bread covered with fruit such as a pomegranate and dates, and a type of pesto (moretum in Latin). Zuchtriegel says the fresco shows “an offering of flatbread with seasoning on it, some spices, some kind of condiment…with maybe some nuts and a [yellow] strawberry garland.
He adds in a press release: “We find in this fresco some themes of the Hellenistic tradition, elaborated later by authors of the Romano-imperial period such as Virgil, Martial and Philostratus. I am thinking of the contrast between a frugal and simple meal, which refers to a sphere between the bucolic and the sacred, on the one hand, and the luxury of silver platters and the refinement of artistic and literary representations, on the other.
Pompeii was engulfed in volcanic ash in AD 79 spewed from Mount Vesuvius. Excavations in Regio IX began earlier this year when the skeletons of two men thought to be in their 50s were discovered in a cluster of houses known as Insula dei Casti Amanti. The food fresco was discovered in the atrium of a house next to a bakery, which was partly excavated between 1888 and 1891 and where excavations resumed in January, according to a statement from Italy’s culture ministry.
