Pompeii Family Blocked Bedroom Door With Bed to Escape Eruption, New Findings Reveal
Recent excavations at the house of Elle and Frisso—a Pompeii home named after a mythological fresco in one of its rooms—have unearthed the building's main interior spaces. Archaeologists also uncovered heart-wrenching details of the inhabitants' desperate attempts to shield themselves from the eruption, a discovery detailed in the E-Journal of Pompeii's Excavations.
'Excavating and visiting Pompeii means coming face to face with the beauty of art but also with the precariousness of our lives,' Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said in a park statement.
Archaeologists unearthed the building's entrance, along with a central hall with a water-collecting basin, a bedroom, and a banquet room decorated with frescoes—including the one depicting Elle and Frisso. They also found a room with an open roof designed to collect rainwater. In the bedroom, the remains of at least four people were discovered, including a child, alongside an amulet likely belonging to them.
The most striking discovery was a bed pushed sideways across the room's entrance—likely an attempt by the inhabitants, possibly a family, to protect themselves from lapilli, the small volcanic fragments flowing in through the roof's opening. While the bed's wood has long since decomposed, archaeologists were able to make a plaster cast of the empty spaces it left behind in the solidified volcanic debris.
'In this small, wonderfully decorated house we found traces of the inhabitants who tried to save themselves,' Zuchtriegel explained. 'They didn't make it, in the end the pyroclastic flow arrived, a violent flow of very hot ash that filled here, as elsewhere, every room.'
Archaeologists also found bronze pottery including a ladle, a jug, a shell-shaped cup, and amphorae, some of which once stored the iconic ancient Roman fish sauce called garum. Furthermore, traces of masonry materials and incomplete decorations suggest that the house was under renovation at the time of the eruption. As is common today, the inhabitants of the house decided not to relocate during the work.
In the myth of Elle and Frisso, also known as Helle and Phrixus, the two siblings' stepmother tricks their father into sacrificing them to the gods. Their mother Nephele sends a flying golden-fleece ram to save them, but Elle falls off its back and into the sea, named Hellespont (the modern-day Dardanelles) in her honor. The fresco in the Pompeii home depicts the moment Elle falls, at which point, depending on the version, she either drowns or Poseidon turns her into a sea-goddess.
The individual who commissioned the fresco for his or her home couldn't have imagined that the mythical tragedy would one day witness one of the most famous catastrophes of the ancient world.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
3 hours ago
- Bloomberg
A New London Apartment Tower Draws Inspiration From History
Building in London often means balancing the desire to create something new and contemporary with the need to harmonize with the city's rich historic fabric. A new 163-unit apartment complex called Cadence does just that in Kings Cross, a major rail hub in the heart of London. With two towers rising just 12 and 16 stories, Cadence maximizes density without overshadowing other buildings in the area. Its red-brick facade — prefabricated offsite to reduce emissions — draws inspiration from the Victorian architecture nearby, as well as from ancient Roman construction techniques. Arches at the base of the building, meanwhile, nod to the railway viaducts that once stood on the site. Read more from Feargus O'Sullivan in the latest entry in our Look at That Building series today on CityLab:
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for local homeless people, invites them to lunch at summer villa
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — Pope Leo XIV spent the last Sunday of his summer vacation with several dozen refugees, homeless and poor people and the church volunteers who help them, celebrating a special Mass for them and inviting them into the Vatican's lakeside estate for a lunch of lasagna and roast veal. Pope Leo XIV: What to know about Chicago-born Robert PrevostLeo celebrated Mass in the St. Mary sanctuary of Albano, near the papal summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, where he is vacationing. The Mass was attended by around 110 people cared for by the local Caritas church charity, and the volunteers who run the diocese's shelters, clinics and social service offices. In his homily, Leo celebrated the 'fire of charity' that had brought them together. 'And I encourage you not to distinguish between those who assist and those who are assisted, between those who seem to give and those who seem to receive, between those who appear poor and those who feel they have something to offer in terms of time, skills, and help,' he said. In the church, he said, everyone is poor and precious, and all share the same dignity. Leo, the former Robert Prevost, spent most of his adult life working with the poor people of Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and then as bishop. Former parishioners and church workers say he greatly reinforced the work of the local Caritas charity, opening soup kitchens and shelters for migrants and rallying funds to build oxygen plants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Later Sunday, Leo presided over a luncheon with the guests, who included Rosabal Leon, a Peruvian refugee who has been in Italy for a few months, along with her husband and two children. Leo's other companion was an 85-year-old Roman, Gabriella Oliveiro, who lives on her own, organizers said. The luncheon was held at the Borgo Laudato Si', the Vatican's environmental educational center in the gardens of the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo. The center is named for Pope Francis' 2015 landmark environmental encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be). Local caterers provided a menu of lasagna, eggplant parmesan and roast veal. For dessert, the menu called for fruit salad and sweets named for the pope, 'Dolce Leone.' Greeting the pope and his guests, who were seated along two long tables under a veranda, Albano Bishop Vincenzo Viva said their coming together to break bread followed the teaching of Christ. Today's church, he said, should be 'by the side of the most vulnerable, the weakest, the young and those who are wounded by the circumstances of life and history.'
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How this Bay Area city is battling a goose invasion — and 300 pounds of poop a day
Welcome to Foster City, home to 24 parks and more than 160 acres of open space that collects some 300 pounds of goose poop a day. Foster City has received national attention for its troubles with Canada geese. Each goose — the city estimates it has between 300 and 400 of them — can produce one or two pounds of droppings a day, turning a park into a minefield. The goose poop requires regular power washings and has contributed to high E. coli levels in parts of the local lagoon. During nesting season the birds can become aggressive, even chasing off small dogs and children. 'We are at the front lines of dealing with this issue,' said Derek Schweigart, Foster City's parks and recreation director. Earlier this month, Foster City took its most comprehensive action yet, with the city council approving a roughly $400,000 contract with a wildlife company to deter the geese at seven 'high impact' parks. Starting sometime in the next month, the company will begin using drones, lasers, balloons and — eventually — dogs to scare or 'haze' the birds. The contract, which is active through June 2026, approved nonlethal measures only. Canada geese have long been a fixture of Foster City's grassy parks, residents say. But as the goose population has swelled, doubling between 2020 and 2022, so have the complaints. Susan Lessin, a 30-year resident of Foster City and member of the San Mateo County Bird Alliance, said she suspects the issue was also exacerbated during the pandemic as residents started spending more time outdoors — and quickly realized they have to be careful where they step. While research has indicated geese aren't a significant transmitter of disease to humans, parents have told the city council that they feel unsafe allowing their children to play in local parks. One man, according to a 2022 New York Times article, said his 2-year-old daughter became sick after putting goose feces in her mouth. And Foster City is far from alone. Wildlife experts say Canada geese are very good at adapting to humans, drawn by the green spaces humans create for themselves. Santa Clara, Redwood City, Oakland and other Bay Area communities have all reported issues with their goose populations. And unless cities want to keep spending the time and money to clean up after the birds, they may have to change, too. 'Frankly, they were here before we were,' Lessin said. 'And to a certain extent, the public has to adapt to the geese.' Once hunted to near-extinction in parts of the United States, Canada geese populations have exploded over the past several decades, thanks in large part to federal protections. In California, breeding geese have generally congregated in the northeast corner of the state. But over the past two or three decades, they've become more distributed throughout the state, said Melanie Weaver, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's waterfowl unit. In 1994, according to a partial count of California's waterfowl, nearly 99% of surveyed breeding Canada geese were in the northeast part of the state. By 2024, that had dropped to about 50%, while the share in the Sacramento Valley and other surveyed regions grew substantially. Like crows, gulls and other 'urban' birds, geese flock to cities because they offer easy food sources and few natural predators. Canada geese are also one of the few bird species that can digest grass, making Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Lake Merritt in Oakland ideal resting spots for them. And because geese tend to return to the place they were born to build their own nests, they become much harder to scare away once they become established in a city. (It also doesn't help that, despite park officials' pleas, some visitors continue to feed the geese). Geese that stay roughly in the same place year-round, known as 'resident' geese, tend to reproduce more than their migratory peers, contributing to their rapid population growth. And because they prefer man-made environments, there's generally little competition with other waterfowl over resources, though you might see the occasional squabble with a gull. 'When humans decide, 'Let's have a park with grass surrounding it,' you've created the most perfect environment for those geese,' Weaver said. 'It's unfortunate, because they are really cool animals,' she added. 'But when they get in that environment, it's not so cool.' Foster City residents and officials alike are waiting to see whether their latest efforts will make the geese think twice about nesting at a local park. Previous attempts have been mixed. When the city tried strobe lights, residents seemed more bothered than were the geese. Adding fencing around the lagoon kept geese out for a while, but the geese eventually found ways around it. Egg addling — shaking or otherwise damaging newly laid eggs to prevent the embryo from developing — keeps the population from growing too rapidly, but that doesn't affect the living geese, which can survive for more than 20 years. Still, Schweigart, the parks and recreation director, said that the city hopes that by combining approaches, the geese will decide it's not worth sticking around. Some research has shown that these multi-pronged efforts can get groups of geese to change locations, but that they often simply move to nearby parks. Even if Foster City succeeds, hundreds of geese may show up in a neighboring community. Aside from the egg addling project, which is conducted between a few San Mateo County cities, each city is tackling its goose issue independently. A longer-term solution to the problem, some officials have suggested, would take a region-wide effort. Lessin, the longtime Foster City resident, said that while she has concerns about the cost of her city's new program, she supports the plan and hopes it will lead to more long-term solutions — as long as they're nonlethal, she emphasized. Plans to euthanize some of the geese in 2022 were dropped after opposition from activists and some residents. 'Everyone is very optimistic, but I think we're cautiously optimistic,' she said. Foster City's 24 parks may look different in the future, as part of a more permanent solution. The city is building a new recreation center at Leo J. Ryan Park and replacing much of the grass with native trees and shrubs. That change, which Schweigart said the city hopes to replicate in its other parks, leaves little food for the geese to eat, forcing them to go elsewhere. In other words, the best way to moderate the goose population may be to change what attracted them in the first place. 'We created this environment for' the geese, Schweigart said. 'And now, unfortunately, we're facing the consequences.'
