Pompeii and Herculaneum have been constant inspirations for fashion designers: season after season the ruins of these two ancient sites (they were both destroyed in AD79 when the Vesuvius exploded) have provided ideas for moods, prints, photoshoots and accessories. The best thing about these places is that discoveries never end and the more archaeologists dig, the more they find wonderful treasures (the ruins of Pompeii were discovered in the 16th century and the first excavations began in 1748; since then they never stopped).
Last March for example the Thermopolium of Regio V had started coming to light in the northern part of Pompeii, in a space between Vicolo delle Nozze d'Argento and Vicolo dei Balconi.
The thermopolium remains one of the places that fascinates the most modern visitors since it was an early version of a restaurant, or rather of a fast food or street food establishment. Here it was possible indeed to buy warm ready-to-eat food such as coarse bread with salty fish, baked cheese, lentils and spicy wine. There were around 150 thermopolia in Pompeii, mainly used by the poorer citizens who didn't have cooking facilities at home. Thermopolia customers were therefore usually mocked and scorned by wealthy people.
Architecturally speaking the thermopolium consisted in a building with a masonry counter on the front. Inside the serving counter there were holes with embedded earthenware jars (called dolia) used to store dried food (for example, nuts). Quite often the food remains in these places allowed archaeologists to make further discoveries about eating habits in ancient times (carbonized remains of nuts were found for example in the thermopolium attached to the House of Neptune and Amphitrite in Herculaneum).
Some of these establishments such as the Thermopolium of Asellina in Pompeii, were decorated with frescoes, and this is also the case with the Thermopolium of Regio V, that had a ground floor with the counter, a back room and a first floor.
Last March archaeologists uncovered part of the counter with a painting of a Nereid on horseback in a marine environment and another section of a painting representing a man with a table and some amphorae. In the last few weeks archaeologists continued their work despite Coronavirus restrictions and unearthed other section of the counter, painted in a bright yellow (a colour that goes well with the floor in polychrome marble) with other frescoes of a chicken and a dog on a leash (the latter accompanied by an insult left by a homophobic patron stating "Nicia Cinede Cacator", meaning Nicia - a freedman's name - is an inverted shitter). Archaeologists also found human remains of two men in this area.
Food-wise they discovered remains of a dish that included meat, fish and snails, so it was a sort of paella, and wine fortified with fava beans (the beans were supposed to improve the taste of the wine).
Regio V, which will hopefully open to the public next year, is the most intensive dig at the site since the 1960s, and if you're looking for further inspirations about Pompeii while this new section gets ready to open, you can check out the Instagram page of Massimo Osanna, the site's outgoing superintendent, who often posts pictures of beautiful pieces (such as the bronze herma from the house of Marcus Fabius Rufus).
Fashion-wise the thermopolia could still be a great fashion inspiration and they must have indirectly informed Gucci Pre-fall 2019 lookbook: as you may remember from a previous post, the lookbook featured models eating take away food and sweets around Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Comments