POMPEII, ITALY—Reuters reports that an extraordinary new fresco was found during recent excavations of a house in Regio IX of Pompeii. The incredible painting features nearly life-size figures in a continuous scene that cover three walls of a spacious banquet room. The artwork, which is similar to the famous fresco at Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries and dates to between 40 and 30 b.c., depicts a procession involving the secret initiation rites into the cult of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. The scene includes dancers, hunters, and musicians in ecstatic merriment. In the center is a woman being initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, a deity who dies and is reborn and promises the same destiny for his followers. In ancient Rome, the cult of Dionysus was known as a mystery cult because only those who had been initiated into it knew its secrets. Pompeii Archaeological Park authorities named the newly excavated house the "House of Thiasus,” a reference to the retinue of inebriated Dionysiac revelers known as a thiasus. “In 100 years, today will be seen as historic, because the discovery we are showing is historic,” said Italian Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli. For more about Dionysiac paintings at Pompeii, go to "Saving the Villa of the Mysteries."
