The discovery was made in the atrium of a residence connected to a bakery. The structure was partly explored in the 19th century. Excavations resumed in January.
The city on the foothills of Mount Vesuvius was destroyed after a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. The disaster, which came with minimal warning, buried the wealthy Roman enclave under ash and cinders, substances that prevented the site’s deterioration and made restoration possible.
The UNESCO World Heritage site is popular with tourists, who can roam through primeval streets, amid temples and amphitheaters that provide a rare at daily life in ancient urban Roman settlements.
Previous discoveries at the site have revealed intact skeletal remains of a horse, a street lined with grand balconied homes and a tomb with remains of an adult man, among others.
The director of the Pompeii archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, identified the fresco as being in the Greek or Hellenistic tradition. The image juxtaposes a pastoral, simple meal and the luxuriousness of a silver tray, he said in the statement.
“When considering this matter, how can we not think about pizza, also born as a ‘poor’ dish in southern Italy that has now conquered the world and is served in Michelin star restaurants,” he said.
The bread appears to be seasoned with spices or with a type of pesto, the archaeologists deduced from the yellowish and ocher dots on the image. The tray also holds dried fruit, next to pomegranates and dates.
Pompeii is located less than 20 miles from modern Naples, whose pizza-making tradition won a spot on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list in 2017. The culinary practice of the “pizzaiuolo,” or pizzamakers, includes preparing and flipping the dough in a complex rotation before baking it in a wood-fired oven.
