Labyrinthus Hic habitat Minotaurus
March 14, 2025 5:25 AM Subscribe
A couple of weeks ago, @pbs.org ran a great new (and free) NOVA episode on “Pompeii’s Secret Underworld.” featuring epigrapher & classicist Rebecca Benefiel, from W&L One of her specialties? Ancient Graffiti. Back in 2011, Prof. Benefiel starting developing an idea for a Pompeii and Herculaneum database for graffiti. It turned into the digital humanities project known as the Ancient Graffiti Project.
“These ancient messages and sketches offer a window into the daily life and interests of the people who lived in the ancient world, especially in Herculaneum and Pompeii. They provide perspectives on Roman society, the ancient economy, religion, spoken language, literacy, and activities within the ancient city. (N.B. The word "graffiti" was originally a technical term for ancient handwritten wall-inscriptions that were scratched into wall plaster. The term later came to mean any writing on a wall.)”
“These ancient messages and sketches offer a window into the daily life and interests of the people who lived in the ancient world, especially in Herculaneum and Pompeii. They provide perspectives on Roman society, the ancient economy, religion, spoken language, literacy, and activities within the ancient city. (N.B. The word "graffiti" was originally a technical term for ancient handwritten wall-inscriptions that were scratched into wall plaster. The term later came to mean any writing on a wall.)”
Here's another example that is beautiful and funny.
I wish!
(A second person seemed to write the second line: Velle!)
posted by Fizz at 5:36 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Amantes, ut apes, vita(m) mellita(m) exiguntTranslation: Lovers, like bees, lead a honeyed life.
Velle(m)!
I wish!
(A second person seemed to write the second line: Velle!)
posted by Fizz at 5:36 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Romanes eunt domus
posted by foleypt at 7:41 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
posted by foleypt at 7:41 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
The minotaur/labyrinth one is super intriguing to me -- it's like writing on the door of a cubby under the stairs "Harry Potter Sleeps Here" -- but then somebody 2,000 years from now sees it and knows exactly what you mean. The minotaur and the labyrinth are still a part of our culture despite it being languages and nations and eras apart. Although I suppose at the time of the graffiti the story of Theseus and the Minotaur was thousands of years old too.
Also, I could totally see the side of a railroad car covered in wild, stylized letters "THE MINOTAUR LIVES IN THE LABYRINTH", with the rest of the space filled with maze walls and it'd hold much the same meaning as the dude who scratched it on a wall back then.
Quanto plus mutatur, tanto plus manent.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:10 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
Also, I could totally see the side of a railroad car covered in wild, stylized letters "THE MINOTAUR LIVES IN THE LABYRINTH", with the rest of the space filled with maze walls and it'd hold much the same meaning as the dude who scratched it on a wall back then.
Quanto plus mutatur, tanto plus manent.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:10 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
One of my all-time favorite Oglaf comics: Labyrinth!
SFW comic, NSFW splash panel, wildly NSFW website. There have been several FPP over the years!
posted by MengerSponge at 9:06 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
SFW comic, NSFW splash panel, wildly NSFW website. There have been several FPP over the years!
posted by MengerSponge at 9:06 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
The documentary looks terrific--thanks! Searching through its transcript, I think it may not be duplicating it to mention some recent press releases about Pompeii that I noticed in the news recently:
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:06 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
- 02/26/2025: Pompeii, discovery of a room with frescoes depicting the initiation into the mysteries and the Dionysiac procession (BBC coverage)
- 01/20/2025: One of the largest private bath complexes ever to be discovered, adjoining a banqueting room, has been brought to light during the excavations of Regio IX in Pompeii (BBC coverage; more BBC coverage)
- 04/11/2024: Pompeii: a dining room decorated with characters and subjects inspired by the Trojan war has emerged from the new excavations (BBC coverage)
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:06 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
It's somehow reassuring that shitposting is a human tradition tracing back millenia.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:08 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:08 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
The frescoes of the initiation into the mysteries that were recently discovered are similar to ones discovered a century ago in the Villa of the Mysteries. The murals in the Villa of the Mysteries inspired the large-scale installation artwork Queer Mysteries by the late artist David Dashiel. Here's a comparison of the source material and his artwork. The scroll of his Studies for Queer Mysteries were unintentionally partially burned in a fire, echoing the destruction of Pompeii and the attempts at recovery of information from burned scrolls there. If only if Dashiel had lived to see this new discovery. See also this essay published at Visual AIDS.
posted by larrybob at 9:30 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
posted by larrybob at 9:30 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
One of the largest private bath complexes ever to be discovered, adjoining a banqueting room, has been brought to light during the excavations of Regio IX in Pompeii
Bath water heated by the heat of molten rock nearer the surface because of proximity to the volcano, presumably.
I wonder whether there might have been a premonition of the eruption in the water getting hotter or colder, draining away or flooding out.
posted by jamjam at 9:40 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Bath water heated by the heat of molten rock nearer the surface because of proximity to the volcano, presumably.
I wonder whether there might have been a premonition of the eruption in the water getting hotter or colder, draining away or flooding out.
posted by jamjam at 9:40 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Romanes eunt domus
People called 'Romanes' they go the house?
posted by The Bellman at 9:44 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
People called 'Romanes' they go the house?
posted by The Bellman at 9:44 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Ramones viginti viginti viginti quattuor horae usque ad
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:00 PM on March 14
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:00 PM on March 14
Better than the old looseleaf binder that my old Latin teacher used. (He had worked in Pompeii if the fifties.)
posted by BWA at 3:11 PM on March 14
posted by BWA at 3:11 PM on March 14
Mod note: Thanks for sharing, we added this to the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:44 AM on March 15
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:44 AM on March 15
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posted by Fizz at 5:27 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]