Stunning Frescoes of Dionysian Cult Rituals Unearthed in Pompeii

An enormous fresco spanning three walls of a recently excavated banquet hall in central Pompeii sheds light on rituals within the cult of Dionysus, the ancient god of festivities, winemaking and orchards, and intoxication and ecstasy. The Pompeii Archaeological Park noted in a statement that the expansive mural, referred to as a megalograph due to its scale, can be attributed to the Second Style of Pompeiian painting, and its discovery comes over a century after a similar fresco was found in the ancient city’s Villa of the Mysteries.

The newly uncovered murals, dubbed the “house of Thiasos” by archaeologists, depict the procession of Dionysus, including young satyrs playing instruments and bacchantes (female followers also known as maenads) that were rendered as both dancers and hunters. Central to the composition is Dionysus’s elder advisor and companion Silenus, accompanied by a mortal woman who is being initiated through a nocturnal ritual into the rites of the Dionysian cult.

Better known as the mysteries, the rites associated with the wine god’s cult often included mortals, usually of marginalized identities (women, enslaved people, and foreigners), participating in dancing, music, and ingesting intoxicants to transcend into a state free of inhibition and societal constraints as they achieved divine ecstasy.

The details of the rituals were exclusive to those active in the cult and also largely lost to history in part because of the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism. Modern understanding only comes from frescoes and other imagery or text-based descriptions.

The archaeologists at Pompeii also note that a characteristic element of the fresco is that all the figures stand on painted pedestals, like statues, but are rendered in full color and shaded as though full of life — another bit of evidence in attributing the mural to the Second Style of Pompeiian painting known for its trompe l’œil effect. They also pinpointed the fresco’s date to around 40–30 BCE, which would make it already around a century old by the time Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.