Stolen by Nazis, returned to Pompeii: Ancient erotic mosaic goes home after 80 years
The intimate artwork, featuring a man reclining in bed with his female partner standing in front of him, was handed back by Germany following a diplomatic effort, the police said in a statement.
Set on a slab of travertine, the mosaic panel dates to between the late 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D.
It was taken from the area around Pompeii, near Naples, during the war by a German Nazi army captain assigned to military logistics in Italy.
The German officer gifted the piece to a civilian, who kept it until his death. His heirs, realising its origin, contacted the Italian authorities to arrange its return.
Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the German-born director of the Pompeii archaeological park, described the mosaic as part of a cultural turning point where everyday intimacy became a subject in Roman art, as opposed to the heroic myths of earlier centuries.
'Here we see a new theme, the routine of domestic love,' he said, noting that the male figure's expression 'seems almost a little bored'.
The mosaic will now be put on display at Pompeii alongside the hundreds of other items and archaeological remains at the site of the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. — Reuters
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
Experiencing Anne Frank's journey with AI-guided tour
Amsterdam, 1941. Every day, young Anne Frank and her sister Margot walked 2.5km to school, as Nazi anti-Jewish laws barred them from using public transport or bicycles. In 2025, using Artificial Intelligence, a new immersive guided tour traces the route of this Amsterdam icon through the city, offering an interactive smartphone reconstruction of the Dutch Jewish experience under Nazi occupation. 'We created this product to bring Anne Frank closer to more people,' said Moti Erdeapel, director of CityFans, the tourism-tech firm behind the project. 'The Anne Frank House – the museum – is a very small place and it has limited capacity, so a lot of people come here and get disappointed because they didn't get to visit Anne Frank,' he said. Each year, more than one million tourists visit the narrow house and annex where the Jewish girl and her family hid from the Nazis for two years. To visit the place where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary, visitors must book six weeks in advance. Tickets sell out fast. All that is required for the virtual tour is a mobile phone and a pair of headphones. A unique code grants access to a 7km, 12-stop route. An audio narrative guides the visitor, along with lifelike animations generated by AI using data from the Anne Frank Institute, the city of Amsterdam and the Holocaust museum. Incredible people 'We tried to dig up stories that maybe most people don't really know but are incredible, people that really risked their lives to save children and to smuggle them out of the Nazis' hands into hiding,' Erdeapel said. One stop features the former home of Miep Gies, the Dutch Catholic who helped hide the Frank family. Her face is brought to life using archive photographs and digital animation. In the De Pijp district, the tour reveals that a coffeeshop now occupies the site of the former Koco ice cream parlour. Run by German-Jewish refugees, the shop helped spark the only protest in Amsterdam against Nazi persecution of Jews – a demonstration that was violently crushed. 'One of the things that make it close to heart is not only that it's such an important story for Amsterdam, but also for me personally, coming from a family of Holocaust survivors,' said Erdeapel, who is of Polish and Hungarian Jewish descent. 'My grandparents survived the Holocaust, a lot of the family members did, and I grew up with these stories about the Holocaust and about people that didn't make it back,' said the 45-year-old Amsterdam resident. Though he stresses the importance of museums and the diary, Erdeapel sees this guided tour as a way to tell Anne Frank's story to a new, tech-savvy generation. 'It's really important that we do good research and we work on storytelling and there's a human aspect to the creation,' he said. 'If you have a deep process to develop this product, I think AI is just going to make things more beautiful and exciting and immersive for everyone.' Around 107,000 Dutch Jews and refugees were deported during World War II. Of these, 102,000 – including Anne Frank – were killed, roughly 75% of the pre-war Jewish population. – AFP
Malay Mail
6 days ago
- Malay Mail
Stolen by Nazis, returned to Pompeii: Ancient erotic mosaic goes home after 80 years
ROME, July 22 — An ancient Roman erotic mosaic depicting a half-naked couple has returned to Pompeii more than 80 years after it was stolen by a Nazi officer during World War Two, Italy's cultural heritage police said last week. The intimate artwork, featuring a man reclining in bed with his female partner standing in front of him, was handed back by Germany following a diplomatic effort, the police said in a statement. Set on a slab of travertine, the mosaic panel dates to between the late 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. It was taken from the area around Pompeii, near Naples, during the war by a German Nazi army captain assigned to military logistics in Italy. The German officer gifted the piece to a civilian, who kept it until his death. His heirs, realising its origin, contacted the Italian authorities to arrange its return. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the German-born director of the Pompeii archaeological park, described the mosaic as part of a cultural turning point where everyday intimacy became a subject in Roman art, as opposed to the heroic myths of earlier centuries. 'Here we see a new theme, the routine of domestic love,' he said, noting that the male figure's expression 'seems almost a little bored'. The mosaic will now be put on display at Pompeii alongside the hundreds of other items and archaeological remains at the site of the ancient city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. — Reuters
Malay Mail
18-07-2025
- Malay Mail
Austrian space diver Felix Baumgartner dies in Italian swimming pool after paraglider mishap
ROME, July 18 — Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil who famously jumped from the edge of the Earth's atmosphere in a 2012 stunt, died on Thursday in Italy, the emergency services there announced. A senior official with the emergency services in the Marches region, northern Italy, confirmed his death to AFP. Police at Porto Sant'Elpidio, on Italy's Adriatic coast, had identified Baumgartner, he said. While he was not able to say what had been the cause of death, a report in the Il Corriere della Sera daily said that Baumgartner had lost control of his paraglider after suffering a malaise. He landed in the swimming pool of a holiday residence at Porto Sant'Elpidio, slightly injuring a young woman. The accident happened at around 4:00 pm, the paper reported. Baumgartner's dramatic 2012 jump from a capsule more than 39 kilometres (24 miles) above the Earth was the most spectacular of a string of record-breaking stunts. — AFP
