[ad_1]
The clay pots with the remains of the most delicious dishes, from kid to snails and even a kind of “paella” with fish and meat together. The wine ‘corrected’ with beans and ready to serve. And a large “L” shaped counter decorated with images so lifelike they almost appear in 3D: a pair of mallards, an amazing rooster, a large dog on a leash on which a joker had graffito a homophobic insult.
In Pompeii, where excavations have never stopped even in the days of the confinement, an almost intact Thermopolium returns to light, in fact a grocery store that sells street food, a genre much loved by the citizens of the Roman colony. Everything almost stopped in time on the day of the eruption, fixed in eternity by the pyroplastic material, which sealed its extraordinary colors and preserved fundamental elements to reconstruct the eating habits and habits of the Romans of two thousand years ago. “A photograph of that disastrous day”, comments the director of the Archaeological Park in an interview with Ansa Massimo osanna.
And also the minister of culture Dario Franceschini applauds, underlining the fruit of teamwork that has been carried out in recent years in Pompeii: “A great example for the country’s recovery – he said – With teamwork, which required legislation and the quality of people, today Pompeii it is indicated in the world as an example of protection and management, once again being one of the most visited places in Italy where research is carried out, excavation continues and extraordinary discoveries like this are made ”.
Located in Regio V, opposite a large square on the corner between the Vicolo dei Balconi and the Casa delle Nozze d’Argento, the new Termopoly had been identified and partially excavated in 2019, when the footprint left in the ash had resurfaced. From one of the large wooden doors and the balcony of the first floor had been found, together with a first part of the counter, the one overlooking the square, one of the most popular in Pompeii, with its beautiful marble fountain.
Perhaps to allude to the exterior monument, says Osanna, “that first part of the counter was decorated with a mythological theme, a Nereid riding an extraordinary hippocampus with a body transformed into a rainbow of colors.” But it was the subsequent excavations, which reached their climax in recent weeks, which, together with the extraordinary decorations, the floor inlaid with polychrome marble and the complete picture of the environment, returned the surprise of a large amount of information that this old workshop may add. to the knowledge of history.
The remains of the dishes on the menu, for example, “with the combined use of mammals, birds, fish and snails on the same plate”, as explained by archaeologist Chiara Corbino in her presentation, actually a kind of antelitteram paella. Or the particular treatment of the wine, as the archaeobotanist Chiara Comegna tells us, which was corrected with beans (they served to whiten it and at the same time to correct its flavor) but also preserved in an idol that had a tile at the bottom. to separate the legumes from the liquid and avoid mixing the wine with its unpleasant background.
Not to mention the skeleton of a dog found one step away from the counter, right next to the painting depicting a dog on a leash: adult but so modest in size that it suggests that selection of pet breeds was already practiced at that time. An investigation that is barely in its infancy and that promises to have “very interesting news”, emphasizes Osanna, underlining that the investigations are now continuing in closed laboratories. But what the new Thermopoly seems to say is also another part of that devastating human tragedy that was the eruption of AD 79.
In the room, with a second room at the back and an upper floor, the remains of two men were found. One of the two, about fifty, according to the hypothesis of the anthropologist Valeria Amoretti, was lying on a bed in the back room, the bones of the other – except for one foot – were instead found in a large vase, with all probabilities hidden there by excavators perhaps even from the seventeenth century who had investigated a part of this environment.
“The store appears to have been hastily closed and abandoned by the owners – Osanna explains – but it is possible that someone, perhaps the older man, stayed inside and died in the first phase of the eruption, crushed by the collapse.” The second instead could be a thief or a hungry fugitive, who went in to pick up something to eat and was surprised by the burning fumes with the lid of the pot that he had just opened in his hand. “
What actually happened will be understood later. Meanwhile, anticipates the director of the Park, the work progresses, “we are working on the consolidation and restoration of the structure, we will also reposition the balcony.” The idea is to open the Thermopoly to visitors, if the pandemic allows it, already in spring, for Easter, opening a path that also passes through the construction site of the Silver Wedding house, a wonder closed to the public since decades ago. In fact, Osanna, who in a few months will deliver the deliveries to her successor, opens her arms and smiles: “At such a time it is nice to think of a gift for our visitors.”
