A long-sealed cupboard has offered archaeologists a rare, intimate window into everyday life in Pompeii, nearly 2,000 years after the ancient city was destroyed.
Among the objects recovered were a perfume container, coins, tweezers and a child’s necklace, revealing the kinds of personal belongings people kept in their homes.
The wooden cupboard stood inside a house on one of Pompeii’s busiest streets before it was entombed beneath volcanic material during Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 AD.
After being buried under metres of ash for centuries, the furniture and its contents have now been painstakingly excavated and examined by researchers.
Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director general of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, said it is impossible to identify the home’s occupants with certainty, but the objects offer valuable clues about their routines.
“Pompeii is not only a site of extraordinary art,” he said. “Even the most commonplace possessions can help restore the human dimension of the past.”
A child’s necklace was among the objects discovered inside a Pompeii cupboard that remained unopened since the eruption. Pictured: An amulet shaped like a winged shoe, once worn as part of a necklace
Children in the Roman Empire were often given necklaces known as crepundia. The protective amulets also acted as rattles, helping busy parents keep track of their children. Pictured: Charms from a child’s crepundia discovered in Pompeii
The most striking of the everyday objects is a children’s necklace called a crepundia, which provides an especially personal glimpse into Roman family life.
It consists of 24 miniature charms, carefully fashioned from materials including bone, glass paste, earthenware and rock crystal.
The decorations include tiny hands and feet, pinecones, clusters of grapes, and figures representing Mercury and Bes. Originally an Egyptian deity, Bes became widely revered throughout the Roman world.
The word crepundia means “to make noise,” reflecting the necklace’s dual purpose. It was believed to protect children while also producing sound that allowed parents to locate them.
Although these necklaces were intended for children rather than adults, they were often preserved as sentimental reminders of childhood.
Travel was common across the Roman world, whether for business, employment or trade. Small personal objects such as these were therefore sometimes stored in boxes or bags and carried as reminders of home.
Dr Sophie Hay, communications officer for the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, told the Daily Mail that the discovery sheds light on the private lives of one or more people who occupied the house before the eruption.
“They point to a belief in protection from the evil eye,” she said, adding that the necklace and other amulets appear to have been kept for their magical and apotropaic qualities.”
A group of lead weights discovered inside a wooden box (pictured) indicates that the household may have been involved in trade
Experts believe the occupants may not have survived the eruption, as valuable possessions and sentimental belongings were left behind in the house
The cupboard also contained tweezers, a small glass vessel that may have held perfume or ointment, a pestle used to prepare cosmetics and an incense burner.
Other finds included bronze, glass and ceramic vessels, among them an elegant snuff bottle decorated with a pine-scale pattern.
Meanwhile, in a sign that life in Pompeii wasn’t always so refined, researchers found the remains of two wild mice that had apparently been sneaking food out of a large jar when the eruption hit.
Dr Hay adds: ‘Evidence from elsewhere in the house suggests that the house was undergoing structural repairs and maintenance work at the time of the eruption so the house was not in a perfect living state potentially affecting how rooms and spaces were used.’
There were also intriguing hints at the owners’ professions, as the archaeologists found a set of lead weights in a small wooden box, suggesting they were involved in trade.
Archaeologists even uncovered a small woven container holding 38 bronze coins.
According to the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, survivors from Pompeii or their descendants usually returned to the city to dig out their valuables after the disaster.
However, Mr Zuchtriegel says the fact that these valuable goods and precious keepsakes remain untouched suggests their owners died without heirs.
The cupboard was found inside a house on one of Pompeii’s busiest streets that was buried during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD
Archaeologists found pots (pictured), vases, tweezers, a pestle for mixing makeup, a glass bottle of perfume, and an intricately decorated snuff box
Despite this new evidence, archaeologists are still trying to piece together a portrait of the people who lived in this house.
The home, known as a domus, was located on the crowded Via dell’Abbondanza, a 900–metre–long strip of bustling shops, workshops and homes that formed the city’s central axis.
The interior of the home is rich, featuring elegant paintings and furniture that would have been typical for these inner–city homes.
After being excavated in 1912, researchers have tentatively linked the house to a man named Cornelius Maximus, due to inscriptions discovered within.
But the interior rooms are only now being excavated as part of a wider restoration project, and there are still many more clues to discover.
Eventually, researchers hope that those small pieces of evidence will come together to reveal what life was like in the doomed city right up to the moment disaster struck.
Mr Zuchtriegel says: ‘The value of this discovery lies in the possibility of reading together the different traces of a life: personal habits, work and memories.’
How Pompeii and Herculaneum were wiped off the map by devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago
What happened?
Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year AD 79, burying the cities of Pompeii, Oplontis, and Stabiae under ashes and rock fragments, and the city of Herculaneum under a mudflow.
Mount Vesuvius, on the west coast of Italy, is the only active volcano in continental Europe and is thought to be one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.
Every single resident died instantly when the southern Italian town was hit by a 500°C pyroclastic hot surge.
Pyroclastic flows are a dense collection of hot gas and volcanic materials that flow down the side of an erupting volcano at high speed.
They are more dangerous than lava because they travel faster, at speeds of around 450mph (700 km/h), and at temperatures of 1,000°C.
An administrator and poet called Pliny the younger watched the disaster unfold from a distance.
Letters describing what he saw were found in the 16th century.
His writing suggests that the eruption caught the residents of Pompeii unaware.
Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year AD 79, burying the cities of Pompeii, Oplontis, and Stabiae under ashes and rock fragments, and the city of Herculaneum under a mudflow
He said that a column of smoke ‘like an umbrella pine’ rose from the volcano and made the towns around it as black as night.
People ran for their lives with torches, screaming and some wept as rain of ash and pumice fell for several hours.
While the eruption lasted for around 24 hours, the first pyroclastic surges began at midnight, causing the volcano’s column to collapse.
An avalanche of hot ash, rock and poisonous gas rushed down the side of the volcano at 124mph (199kph), burying victims and remnants of everyday life.
Hundreds of refugees sheltering in the vaulted arcades at the seaside in Herculaneum, clutching their jewelry and money, were killed instantly.
The Orto dei fuggiaschi (The garden of the Fugitives) shows the 13 bodies of victims who were buried by the ashes as they attempted to flee Pompeii during the 79 AD eruption of the Vesuvius volcano
As people fled Pompeii or hid in their homes, their bodies were covered by blankets of the surge.
While Pliny did not estimate how many people died, the event was said to be ‘exceptional’ and the number of deaths is thought to exceed 10,000.
What have they found?
This event ended the life of the cities but at the same time preserved them until rediscovery by archaeologists nearly 1700 years later.
The excavation of Pompeii, the industrial hub of the region and Herculaneum, a small beach resort, has given unparalleled insight into Roman life.
Archaeologists are continually uncovering more from the ash-covered city.
In May archaeologists uncovered an alleyway of grand houses, with balconies left mostly intact and still in their original hues.
A plaster cast of a dog, from the House of Orpheus, Pompeii, AD 79. Around 30,000 people are believed to have died in the chaos, with bodies still being discovered to this day
Some of the balconies even had amphorae – the conical-shaped terra cotta vases that were used to hold wine and oil in ancient Roman times.
The discovery has been hailed as a ‘complete novelty’ – and the Italian Culture Ministry hopes they can be restored and opened to the public.
Upper stores have seldom been found among the ruins of the ancient town, which was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius volcano and buried under up to six meters of ash and volcanic rubble.
Around 30,000 people are believed to have died in the chaos, with bodies still being discovered to this day.