The Villa of the Mysteries

A painted initiation into the secret rites of Dionysus, sealed by Vesuvius

A villa of more than 60 rooms 400 metres outside the walls of Pompeii, beyond the Herculaneum Gate, looking out over the Gulf of Naples. Vesuvius buried it in 79 AD and did it remarkably little harm, so when it was dug out from 1909 the walls of Room 5 still carried one of the great survivals of Roman painting: a continuous fresco of about 70 to 60 BC, women, satyrs and dancing maenads moving through what most scholars read as an initiation into the Mysteries of Dionysus, the Roman Bacchus, perhaps a bride being prepared for marriage. What exactly it shows is still argued over. The room sits at the back of the house with a single door, as if kept for invited guests on special occasions. After the earthquake of 62 AD the villa became a working wine estate, and its press has been put back where it stood. The remains of several people caught by the eruption were found in the villa. Part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Pompeii, Campania.