In Italy, archaeologists working in the Pompeii Archaeological Park have discovered images of gladiators that are about 2,000 years old. Ancient graffiti was found during excavations of a house known as Casa del Cenacolo Colonnato.
Heritage Daily reports on the discovery. The excavations were carried out in a house on the Via del Abbondanza in Pompeii. On the walls of the fence, archaeologists discovered ancient drawings, probably made by children. They drew with charcoal.
Dating the images showed that they were most likely painted on the walls shortly before the infamous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed both Pompeii and the nearby city of Herculaneum.
“The children who lived in this neighborhood must have experienced extreme forms of spectacular violence in the amphitheater,” says Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. “The drawings show us the impact of this violence on the imagination of a boy or girl.”
Images of gladiators were found in the hallway next to the service patio. They represent a fight scene between two gladiators, as well as a hunting game in which two bestiaries armed with spears participate.
The drawings were also found in the warehouse where the amphorae were kept. There the children created a whole series of works. Among them, a scene draws attention in which two people seem to be playing with a ball. In another drawing, the boy depicted a wild boar and a fight reminiscent of a boxing match.
“Another boxing scene immortalizes the ‘knockout,’ but this image was partially bleached and painted with red mineral pigment,” the researchers report.
Pompeii is a Roman city located in the modern commune of Pompeii, near Naples, in Italy. It is currently an archaeological park of great value to archaeologists, since it was buried under a layer of volcanic ash and pumice stone 4 to 6 meters thick during the eruption of Vesuvius.
