The director of the archaeological site, Gabriel Zugtrigel, explained in a statement cited by Efe that the discovery of these furnished houses provides information about the middle and lower classes of Pompeii, “the majority of its population, but not mentioned in the sources.”.
The excavation revolves around the so-called Casa del Larario, a luxurious sanctuary that saw the light in 2018, and experts have already entered four rooms, two on the first floor and two in the basement, at street level.
Inside, they found countless pieces of furniture and objects, all illustrating the life of Pompeii’s “middle class” at the moment when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying the Roman city for nearly two millennia.
A simple and clay-floored room, perhaps a pantry, had five shelves and a two-meter-high shelf that still preserved everyday objects such as glasses, plates, pottery, small containers, and amphorae.
The toilet is located in the same place it occupied at the time of the explosion and is partially broken because the weight of the pyroclastic material caused the roof of the house to collapse.
Experts will continue to explore what Ash hides in its lowest shelves, and preserving it is a daunting task.
In another small room, without any decoration on its walls, you can find a simple bed, a three-legged table with a mirror on top, believed to have been vacated by its owner after escaping the fire.
The type of bed was found last year in the slave room of the villa “Civita Giuluana” without any decoration, removable and without mattress, only with a hammock of ropes.
In another room on the first floor, another cupboard was found with household utensils and glasses, a bronze barrel and an “scent burner” or “perfumer” in excellent condition, according to Efe.
“In the Roman Empire a large part of the population was concerned for their own social status (…), a class vulnerable in times of political crises and famines, but ambitious when it came to climbing socially”, explained Zuchtriegel.
That is why the inhabitants of the Casa del Larario are considered to have lived with the same ambition of prosperity, because while some rooms are decorated and contain some expensive objects, others have “more simple” wooden furniture.
“We don’t know the occupants of the house, but certainly the leisure culture inspired by the magnificent decoration of the patio reflects the future they dreamed about rather than the reality they lived in,” explained the director.
The Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, celebrated the news: “Pompeii never ceases to amaze, a beautiful story of recovery, Italy works as a team and invests in young people, achieving extraordinary results in research and discovery. . ”.
