A Newly-Discovered Fresco in Pompeii Reveals a Precursor to Pizza

Archae­ol­o­gists dig­ging in Pom­peii have unearthed a fres­co con­tain­ing what may be a “dis­tant ances­tor” of the mod­ern piz­za. The fres­co fea­tures a plat­ter with wine, fruit, and a piece of flat focac­cia. Accord­ing to Pom­peii archae­ol­o­gists, the focac­cia does­n’t have toma­toes and moz­zarel­la on top. Rather, it seem­ing­ly sports “pome­gran­ate,” spices, per­haps a type of pesto, and “pos­si­bly condiments”–which is just a short hop, skip and a jump away to piz­za.

Found in the atri­um of a house con­nect­ed to a bak­ery, the fine­ly-detailed fres­co grew out of a Greek tra­di­tion (called xenia) where gifts of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, includ­ing food, are offered to vis­i­tors. Nat­u­ral­ly, the fres­co was entombed (and pre­served) for cen­turies by the erup­tion of Mt. Vesu­vius in 79 A.D.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Explore the Roman Cook­book, De Re Coquinar­ia, the Old­est Known Cook­book in Exis­tence

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread from 79 AD: A Video Intro­duc­tion

Watch the Destruc­tion of Pom­peii by Mount Vesu­vius, Re-Cre­at­ed with Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion (79 AD)


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.