• Recent find: they discover in Pompeii a thermopoly, an old, intact 'street fast-food'

  • Painting. A new fresco found in Pompeii: an "extremely realistic" fight between two gladiators

The

archaeological site of Pompeii

, the Roman city buried by a volcanic eruption 2,000 years ago, unveiled new treasures discovered in recent excavations on Monday, including intriguing amulets.

Inside a box, archaeologists discovered

dozens of

ivory, bronze, ceramic or amber

amulets

,

rings and statuettes

that apparently were not enough to protect the city from the fury of Vesuvius, which would have erupted in the year 79 AD, six months later than previously thought.

"It is one of the most curious things that we have discovered in our searches: amulets [...] that seem to have belonged to a woman or a man

who used magic

", explains the director of the Pompeii archaeological park, Massimo Osanna.

Osanna made these remarks on the occasion of the

inauguration of the Antiquarium

, the renovated museum displaying bronze statues, frescoes, gold and silver jewelery ... Archaeologists have only uncovered a third of the site, which covers 44 hectares not far from Naples.

"Here are some of

the most important objects discovered since the 19th century

. The Antiquarium transports you through centuries of Pompeii history, until the fatal day of the eruption," stressed Osanna.

New amulets displayed in the Antiquarium museum.

According to him, the space that tells of the last days of the city is "the most impressive section" of the museum tour.

Massimo Osanna, who has run Pompeii since 2014, oversaw a major renovation work funded in large part by the European Union, which served to revitalize the site, inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage list but poorly maintained.

In December, archaeologists announced an exceptional discovery: a

thermopile

, a kind of fast food street stall in ancient Rome, decorated with polychromatic prints and in an exceptional state of preservation.

The bar, petrified by volcanic ash, is located

in a neighborhood that used to have a strong influx

, at the crossroads of the Balcones alley with the Silver Wedding alley.

"The soul of Pompeii"

In addition to a well-known fresco depicting a Nereid (a sea nymph) on a horse, archaeologists found, painted in bright colors,

animals, such as chickens and ducks

, which were probably consumed with wine or hot drinks.

The experts found food reliefs on the tables, which could provide valuable information about the

gastronomic customs

of Pompeii.

Inside clay pots were fragments of duck bone and remains of pig, goat, fish and snails.

Apparently, several ingredients were combined in the same dish.

Like most Italian cultural facilities,

Pompeii has been closed in recent months

due to the covid-19 pandemic.

It reopened on January 18, but it is still almost deserted, with an average of fewer than 100 daily visitors, up from 8,000 before the pandemic.

"

We have lost 80% of our visitors

, and, therefore, 80% of our box office income," lamented Osanna, specifying that the site had subsidies from the Ministry of Culture to compensate for the drop in income.

On Monday, only a few journalists, who had arrived for the opening of the museum, as well as archaeologists and guards, and some guides were idle by the absence of tourists.

In 2019,

Pompeii received more than 3.9 million visitors

, making it the third most visited place in Italy after the Colosseum in Rome and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

For Massimo Osanna, the current period is an exceptional time to visit Pompeii.

"It is almost as if one could see the soul of Pompeii, its spirit.

It is an abandoned city

, and seeing it without tourists perhaps makes one think more about the horrible catastrophe that truncated the lives here and that reduced to silence a vibrant place of life" .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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