This is the first evidence that the Ancient Romans ate something similar to the iconic pie believed to have been invented in Naples in the 19th century.
While they stressed that it couldn’t really be pizza because key ingredients like tomatoes and mozzarella had not yet been brought to Italy or invented, they said its shape was remarkably similar.
The food depicted in the 2000-year-old painting emerged from an iconographic analysis of a still-life fresco, which emerged in recently as part of the new excavations in insula 10 of Regio IX in Pompeii.
It was found in the atrium of an aristocratic abode that had a bakery tacked onto it.
Officials said that what was depicted on the wall of the ancient Pompeian house could be a distant ancestor of the modern dish, which was elevated to World Heritage status in 2017 as the ‘traditional art of the Neapolitan pizzaiolo’.
Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said the discovery showed that “Pompeii is a treasure trove that never stops yielding amazing finds”.
The director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, pointed out “the remarkable Hellenistic themes in the still life, which can be found in Roman writers like the poets Virgil and Martial and the philosopher Philostratus”.
He also revealed that foods in the fresco could be “precisely identified”.
ANSA
