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All Italy Pompeii Villa dei Misteri

Villa dei Misteri

This amazingly well-preserved villa just outside Pompeii boasts rare examples of ancient Roman paintings.

Pompeii, Italy

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Villa dei Misteri seen from above.   ElfQrin/cc by-sa 4.0
Detail of a well-preserved fresco.   Yann Forget/public domain
A room inside the villa, every wall is covered in frescoes.   Miguel Hermoso Cuesta/cc by-sa 4.0
One of the frescos inside Villa dei Misteri.   WolfgangRieger/public domain
Getting her hair done   nanorama / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Villa dei Misteri was buried under hundreds of feet of ash and volcanic material when the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 destroyed Pompei, Herculaneum, and other nearby towns. The villa was largely undamaged though, and its ancient frescos survived remarkably intact. Today they are among the few remaining examples of ancient Roman painting.

The name of the villa translates to "Villa of the Mysteries," which comes from a series of frescos dating back to the 1st century. They depict a ritual interpreted as the initiation of a young woman to a Greco-Roman mystery cult, an esoteric religious current very common in the ancient world. The particular cult represented here seems to be dedicated to Bacchus, the god of wine, fertility, and religious ecstasy.

Villa dei Misteri was very large with many different rooms, as was common for many Roman villas of that period. A wine press was found at the site, as it was also common for wealthy families to produce their own wine, olive oil, and other products since most villas included some farmland. Also, as with many other parts of Pompei and the other destroyed cities, some petrified bodies were found here. The villa was first excavated in the early 20th century, and is still being explored by archaeologists today.

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Ruins Volcanoes Archaeology Paintings Roman Ancient Villas Geology

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The site is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 24 hours on weekends. The villa is about a 15-minute walk from the main ruins of Pompei, and well worth the journey.

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  • nanorama

Published

March 8, 2019

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Sources
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Mysteries
  • https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_dei_Misteri
  • http://www.pompeiisites.org/Sezione.jsp?idSezione=174
Villa dei Misteri
2 Via Villa dei Misteri
Pompeii
Italy
40.753688, 14.477463
Get Directions

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