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FEATURE - Aus Forschung und Wissenschaft: 2.000 Jahre alte Fresken in einem grossen Bankettsaal in Pompeji entdeckt
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A newly discovered fresco in Pompeii is shedding fresh light on the mysterious Dionysiac cults of the ancient world - and how they depicted “wild” women who broke free of the male order.
More than a century after the famous Villa of the Mysteries was unearthed, archaeologists have revealed a strikingly detailed frieze depicting the procession of Dionysus, the god of wine.
The nearly life-sized fresco, known as a "megalography" due to its large-scale figures, was found in a grand banqueting room in Insula 10 of Region IX in central Pompeii. It spans three sides of the room, while the fourth side opens onto a garden.
The vivid artwork portrays bacchantes, or maenads, as both dancers and fierce hunters. Some carry slaughtered kid goats or wield swords while holding the innards of animals. Young satyrs, with their distinctive pointed ears, are shown playing the double flute. At the centre of the frieze stands a mortal woman accompanied by an aged Silenus holding a torch, suggesting her initiation into the Dionysiac mysteries—a cult promising rebirth and the possibility of an afterlife.
Explaining its significance, Gabriel Zuchtriegel said: “These frescoes have a profoundly religious meaning which, however, was also designed to decorate areas for holding banquets and feasts, 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.
“Behind these magnificent paintings, which play with illusion and reality, we can observe the signs of a religious crisis that was affecting the ancient world, but we can also grasp the grandeur of a ritual that dates back to an archaic world.”
He also said the bacchante or maenad, “expressed the wild, untameable side of women,” who “break free from male order to dance freely” and take on traditional male pursuits like hunting.
Intriguingly, all the figures appear to *** Local Ca
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