World
Breathtaking New Paintings Found At Ancient Roman City
Stunning artworks have been uncovered in a new excavation at Pompeii, the ancient Roman city buried in an eruption from Mount Vesuvius in AD79.
Archaeologists say the frescos are among the finest to be found in the ruins of the ancient site.
Mythical Greek figures such as Helen of Troy are depicted on the high black walls of a large banqueting hall.
The room’s near-complete mosaic floor incorporates more than a million individual white tiles.
The black room has only emerged in the last few weeks. Its white mosaic floor is almost complete
A third of the lost city has still to be cleared of volcanic debris. The current dig, the biggest in a generation, is underlining Pompeii’s position as the world’s premier window on the people and culture of the Roman Empire.
Park director Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel presented the “black room” exclusively to the BBC on Thursday.
It was likely the walls’ stark colour was chosen to hide the smoke deposits from lamps used during entertaining after sunset.
“In the shimmering light, the paintings would have almost come to life,” he said.
In one, the god Apollo is seen trying to seduce the priestess Cassandra. Her rejection of him, according to legend, resulted in her prophecies being ignored.
The tragic consequence is told in the second painting, in which Prince Paris meets the beautiful Helen – a union Cassandra knows will doom them all in the resulting Trojan War.
A plaster glue must be injected behind a fresco or it is likely to come away from the wall
The black room is the latest treasure to emerge from the excavation, which started 12 months ago – an investigation that will feature in a documentary series from the BBC and Lion TV to be broadcast later in April.
A wide residential and commercial block, known as “Region 9”, is being cleared of several metres of overlying pumice and ash thrown out by Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago.
Staff are having to move quickly to protect new finds, removing what they can to a storeroom.
For the frescos that must stay in position, a plaster glue is injected to their rear to prevent them coming away from the walls. Masonry is being shored up with scaffolding and temporary roofing is going over the top.
Chief restorer Dr Roberta Prisco spent Tuesday this week trying to stop an arch from collapsing.
“The responsibility is enormous; look at me,” she said, as if to suggest the stress was taking a visible toll on her.
“We have a passion and a deep love for what we’re doing, because what we’re uncovering and protecting is for the joy also of the generations that come after us.”
In the reception hall, rubble in the far right corner is from renovation at the time of the eruption
Region 9 has thrown up a detective story for archaeologists.
Excavations in the late 19th Century uncovered a laundry in one corner. The latest work has now revealed a wholesale bakery next door, as well as the grand residence with its black room.
The team is confident the three areas can be connected, physically via the plumbing and by particular passageways, but also in terms of their ownership.
The identity of this individual is hinted at in numerous inscriptions with the initials “ARV”. The letters appear on walls and even on the bakery’s millstones.
“We know who ARV is: he’s Aulus Rustius Verus,” explained park archaeologist Dr Sophie Hay. “We know him from other political propaganda in Pompeii. He’s a politician. He’s super-rich. We think he may be the one who owns the posh house behind the bakery and the laundry.”
Dr Lia Trapani catalogues everything from the dig. She reaches for one of the thousand or more boxes of artefacts in her storeroom and pulls out a squat, turquoise cone. “It’s the lead weight from a plumb line.” Just like today’s builders, the Roman workers would have used it to align vertical surfaces.
She holds the cone between her fingers: “If you look closely you can see a little piece of Roman string is still attached.”
It’s possible to see a remnant piece of string around the neck of the plumb line
Dr Alessandro Russo has been the other co-lead archaeologist on the dig. He wants to show us a ceiling fresco recovered from one room. Smashed during the eruption, its recovered pieces have been laid out, jigsaw-style, on a large table.
He’s sprayed the chunks of plaster with a mist of water, which makes the detail and vivid colours jump out.
You can see landscapes with Egyptian characters; foods and flowers; and some imposing theatrical masks.
“This is my favourite discovery in this excavation because it is complex and rare. It is high-quality for a high-status individual,” he explained.
The archaeologists have had to piece together a ceiling fresco that was shattered during the volcanic eruption
But if the grand property’s ceiling fresco can be described as exquisite, some of what’s being learned about the bakery speaks to an altogether more brutal aspect of Roman life – slavery.
It’s obvious the people who worked in the business were kept locked away in appalling conditions, living side by side with the donkeys that turned the millstones. It seems there was one window and it had iron bars to prevent escape.
It’s in the bakery also that the only skeletons from the dig have been discovered. Two adults and a child were crushed by falling stones. The suggestion is they may have been slaves who were trapped and could not flee the eruption. But it’s guesswork.
“When we excavate, we wonder what we’re looking at,” explained co-lead archaeologist Dr Gennaro Iovino.
“Much like a theatre stage, you have the scenery, the backdrop, and the culprit, which is Mount Vesuvius. The archaeologist has to be good at filling in the gaps – telling the story of the missing cast, the families and children, the people who are not there anymore”,
The UN on Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) – the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban an entire category of weapons of mass destruction
The UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu. in a statement, said that the world came together 50 years ago to ban biological weapons,.
She noted that in today’s volatile geopolitical climate we can ill-afford to let this moral safeguard “erode”,
Disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told Member States in Geneva that the BWC “remains a testament to the conscience of humankind”. Yet as technology evolves, so too do potential risks.
“We must ensure the instruments of the 20th century can respond to today’s global 21st century challenges,” Nakamitsu said.
In his message, the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres urged all States parties to actively participate in the Working Group on Strengthening the BWC – which verifies compliance, capacity-building and assistance – and called on the Group to accelerate its efforts in this milestone year.
“These efforts reinforce the commitment in the Pact for the Future, adopted at the United Nations last year, for all countries to pursue a world free of biological weapons,” he said.
Guterres hailed the Convention as a cornerstone of international peace and security, having contributed over five decades to “collective efforts to reject the use of disease as a weapon.”
Today, 188 countries are party to the convention, which effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons.
The BWC stands as a safeguard, ensuring that advances in biology and biotechnology are used solely for “peaceful purposes” – and not to trigger artificial epidemics that threaten us all.
While the vast majority of UN Member States have joined the convention, nine countries remain outside.
The secretary-general called on those governments to ratify the treaty without delay.
UN disarmament affairs office, UNODA, is working to support the convention’s implementation – especially in Africa where it has engaged 100 young scientists through the Youth for Biosecurity Fellowship in the last five years.
“Together, let us stand united against biological weapons,” the secretary-general said.
As the world grapples with new global health challenges and geopolitical uncertainty, the BWC remains a vital barrier against the misuse of science.
Reinforcing it, the UN chief said, is essential to prevent biological weapons from ever being used again – whether in conflict, acts of terror, or by accident.
NAN reports that the BWC currently has 187 states-parties, including Palestine, and four signatories (Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, and Syria).
The 10 states that have neither signed nor ratified the BWC are Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan, and Tuvalu.
Kirsty Coventry hopes her election as the first female and African president of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, beating six male candidates including Britain’s Lord Coe, sends a powerful signal.
The 41-year-old former swimmer, who won two Olympic gold medals, secured a majority of 49 of the 97 available votes in the first round of yesterday’s election, while World Athletics boss Coe won just eight.
Zimbabwe’s sports minister Coventry will replace Thomas Bach, who has led the IOC since 2013, on 23 June and be the youngest president in the organisation’s 130-year history.
Her first Olympics will be the Milan-Cortina Winter Games in February 2026.
“It’s a really powerful signal. It’s a signal that we’re truly global and that we have evolved into an organisation that is truly open to diversity and we’re going to continue walking that road in the next eight years,” Coventry said.
Runner-up Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr won 28 votes while France’s David Lappartient and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe earned four votes each. Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan and Sweden’s Johan Eliasch both took two.
Coventry, who already sits on the IOC executive board and was said to be Bach’s preferred candidate, is the 10th person to hold the highest office in sport and will be in post for at least the next eight years.
Coventry has won seven of Zimbabwe’s eight Olympic medals – including gold in the 200m backstroke at both the 2004 and 2008 Games.
“The young girl who first started swimming in Zimbabwe all those years ago could never have dreamed of this moment,” said Coventry.
“I am particularly proud to be the first female IOC president, and also the first from Africa.
Cameroon were held to a shock draw away to unfancied Eswatini as African qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup resumed on Wednesday.
Bryan Mbeumo came closest to breaking the deadlock for the Indomitable Lions when the Brentford forward hit the woodwork with a curling effort from distance in the first half.
Eswatini are ranked 159th in the world, 110 places below the central Africans, but were able to hold on in the second half, with Mlamuli Makhanya tipping a header from Cameroon captain Vincent Aboubakar over the crossbar.
Cameroon remain unbeaten after five games but could be replaced as Group D leaders before they host Libya on Tuesday next week.
Elsewhere, Tunisia continued their unbeaten start with a hard-fought 1-0 win away against Liberia to move five points clear at the top of Group H.
Madagascar moved to the summit of Group I after coming from behind to win 4-1 away against Central African Republic (CAR) in Corentin Martins’ first match in charge.
The islanders lead Comoros and Ghana by a point.
There were nine qualifiers yesterday, with Comoros having a chance to regain top spot in Group I when they hosted Mali.
Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup finals resumed after a nine-month hiatus, with the final six rounds of group matches spread across March, September and October.
The nine group winners are guaranteed a place in the World Cup finals, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Cameroon have appeared at an African-record eight editions of the tournament but their task has got trickier after dropping two points in neutral Mbombela.
Mbeumo also had a shot deflected wide in the first half while Aboubakar was wasteful with efforts either side of the break.