Newly discovered Pompeii frieze shows wild Bacchanalian rituals

Some of the figures represent priests and priestesses, as well as musicians and hunters. (Silvia Vacca/Pompeii Sites via CNN Newsource)

Another new discovery in the ruins of Pompeii has shed light on the wilder side of the ancient Romans.

An extremely rare frieze known as a “megalography,” or painting with life-sized figures, has been unearthed in an area where ongoing excavations have produced some of the ancient site’s most important finds.

Uncovered in what was once a spacious banqueting hall that opened onto a garden, the frieze dates back to the 1st century BC, meaning it was nearly 100 years old when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying Pompeii in pumice and killing more than 2,000 inhabitants.

The newest discovery, in Region IX in the central part of the city, depicts the procession of Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine, against walls and columns painted in Pompeiian red.

The depictions show priests and priestesses, known as bacchantes or maenads, portrayed as dancers, along with flautists, hunters and huntresses with slaughtered animals slung on their shoulders.

In one image, a hunter swings a sword from which animal entrails are dangling. In another, a figure makes an acrobatic offering of wine, the libation flowing behind him from a drinking horn.

At the center of the frieze, next to Dionysus’ companion Silenus, stands a woman. She is on the brink of being initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, an ancient ritual using intoxicants to remove inhibitions. Initiates then became members of “mystery cults.” Their rites could not be revealed to those outside the cult and were therefore a source of great fascination to the wider populace.

In 186 BC, the Roman Senate banned the rites, known as Bacchanalia, on moral grounds, except in special circumstances. Nonetheless, they continued, especially in southern Italy.

All the figures in the frieze are shown on pedestals, and a second row of images above the human figures shows animals – alive and dead – as well as sea creatures and seafood in baskets.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said the frescoes were intended to delight guests at the banquets.

“Rather like when we find a copy of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the wall of an Italian restaurant in New York to create a little bit of atmosphere,” he said in a press statement published Wednesday.

“For the ancients, the bacchante or maenad expressed the wild, untamable side of women: the woman who abandons her children, the house and the city, who breaks free from male order to dance freely, go hunting and eat raw meat in the mountains and the woods,” Zuchtriegel said.

“In other words, the direct opposite of the ‘nice’ woman who emulates Venus, the goddess of love and marriage, the woman who looks at herself in the mirror and ‘dolls herself up.’”

The room has been named the House of Thiasus, a reference to the Greek word for the procession of devotees of Dionysus, the archaeological park said in the statement. It will open to the public immediately, with 15 people admitted at a time.

“The megalography provides another glimpse into the rituals of the mysteries of Dionysus. It is an exceptional historical document and, together with the fresco of the Villa of the Mysteries, constitutes a one-of-a-kind, making Pompeii an extraordinary testimony to an aspect of life in classical Mediterranean life that is largely unknown,” Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said in the statement.

“We are living in an important moment for Italian and world archaeology which has also registered a strong increase in visitors.”

In 2024, more than four million people visited the site. In 2025, the park will cap daily visitors to 20,000 a day.

The discovery comes more than 100 years after a similar frieze depicting the Dionysiac mysteries was found in the so-called Villa of the Mysteries near the main entrance of the archaeological park.

Recent excavations in Region IX, which covers around 3,200 square meters (0.8 acres), unearthed a lavish spa, exotic frescoes in a villa that was undergoing renovation when Vesuvius erupted, and a bakery.

CNN’s Sharon Braithwaite contributed to this report.