Pompeii, the ancient Roman city that was buried by ash and lava in AD 79, has found a new treasure – a private bath house built 2,000 years ago, decorated with beautiful paintings and with several hot, cold and hot rooms. spa.

“We have here perhaps the largest private thermal building in Pompeii,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii museum. “The people of the ruling class of Pompeii set up large spaces in their houses to hold feasts.

“They had the task of creating alliances, promoting election campaigns, closing contracts. It was an opportunity to show the wealth they live in and have good oil support,” he said.

The baths were excavated in an area known as Regio IX, the large central area of ​​the as-yet-unnamed Pompeii zoo, where archaeological finds are revealing new information about Pompei’s daily life.

Zuchtriegel said the look is reminiscent of a scene from a Roman novel The Satyriconwhere feasts and baths were very important to show wealth and status.

Recently, archaeologists working in the same area discovered a bakery, a laundry, two houses and the bones of three people who died on Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

At the time of the eruption, the city of Pompeii had about 13,000 inhabitants. The ruins of the city are located about 23 kilometers southeast of Naples, and the remains of more than 1,000 people have been found in the ruins over the years.

2 human remains found in the excavation

Excavated photos at the site show dusty walls decorated with colorful stripes or blocks of red, black or yellow, and a large rectangular basin, complete with what appear to be curved stone steps or seats in the corner of the bathroom only.

Zuchtriegel said that the rich people of Pompeii often bathed and had a party, so the private vaults allowed them to do so within the same building.

“There is a place for about 30 people who can do the whole routine, and this can also be done in public baths. So there is a calidarium, a very warm place and a big cold water bath,” he said.

A private house with a bathhouse contained another revelation for archaeologists: the remains of two people, a woman between the ages of 35 and 50 who was carrying jewelry and money and a boy.