2,000-Year-Old Middle-Class Home Has Been Dug Up From Pompeii Ruins

As with many stories stitched of history, and even the present, people are often more fascinated by the lives of the wealthy and the poor in Pompeii. The middle class is almost always overlooked.

But as affirmed from a recent discovery in the ruins of a large district dubbed as Regio v, that’s unfortunate, because these pockets of history are far more relatable.

Archaeologists have excavated remnants of a middle-class home in the rubble of this starstruck city. They first found its courtyard back in 2018, which was adorned with beautiful frescoes of flora and fauna, as well as hunting scenes.

The innards, dug up recently, tell a different story. They are seemingly more modest, indicating that its occupants had kept up appearances. It’s an age-old struggle of the middle class—the people who have the disposable income to pamper themselves with a few pleasantries but still worry about making enough to support their families.

“In the Roman Empire there was a significant proportion of the population which fought for their social status and for whom the ‘daily bread’ was anything but taken for granted,” explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii site. “It was a social class that was vulnerable during political crises and famines, but also ambitious to climb the social ladder.”

Zuchtriegel notes that although the homeowners were able to generously furnish their courtyard, “evidently they didn’t have enough money for all of the rooms” inside.

The items in the house were pretty fundamental. There’s a bedroom on the lower story with parts of a bed frame and the mass of a pillow, with its texture still visible. According to the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, this bed has the same form as three others previously excavated from a room believed to be for slaves.

There’s an open wooden chest containing a lantern that depicts the god Zeus transforming into an eagle. Next to it stands a three-legged table with decorative plates.

The objects have remained in their spots ever since their owners attempted to escape the destruction of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. To further preserve them, the team made plaster casts by pouring liquid plaster into spaces covered in volcanic ash.

The archaeologists also found a simple storage room with just an earthern floor. It was also the only room wthout plastered walls.

The artifacts paint a picture of ordinary people who had led ordinary lives until the eruption.

Other items that were picked up include an incense burner and bronze vessels that had fallen from upstairs, as well as jugs and plates from a cabinet. One of the plates has a sphinx-shaped handle.

“We do not know who the inhabitants of the house were, but certainly the culture of otium (leisure) which inspired the wonderful decoration of the courtyard… [as compared with the rooms] represented for them more a future they dreamed of than a lived reality,” concludes Zuchtriegel.

[via Smithsonian Magazine, Euronews, Associated Press, images via Archaeological Park of Pompeii]