Archaeologists find tomb with mummified body in Pompeii: the mystery of Marcus Venerius

According to tradition, the bodies of adults were still cremated in Pompeii, the city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 BC. However, the discovery by researchers at the University of Valencia of a beautifully preserved tomb with the partially mummified body of a man moved archaeologists: Why did Marcus Venerius Secundio want to be buried?

The excavations were carried out as part of the project that investigates the archeology of death in the Porta Sarno necropolis with the scientific direction in charge of Luana Toniolo, official archaeologist of the Parco de Pompeya and Llorenç Alapont, researcher of the Department of Prehistory, Archeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia.

“This is a very important and unique discovery. It is the only tomb in Pompeii with a chamber for burial and also with an inscription that tells not only the life of the deceased but also his penchant for theater and artistic works, especially in Greek, so it is the first once it is verified that in the city there were performances in this language “Alapont explains his discovery in an interview with EFE.

AN EXCEPTIONAL DISCOVERY

On the marble slab of the pediment of the tomb, we can read an inscription commemorating the the late Marcus Venerius Secundio, but also throws in details that in the Pompeii theater the performances were held in Greek, which had never been seen directly before.

The tomb, supposed to date from the last decades of the life of the city, consists of a masonry on the facade of which remains of paint are preserved: green plants can be guessed on a blue background.

The character of Marcus Venerius Secundio appears in the archives of wax tablets belonging to the Pompeian banker Cecilius Jucundus, owner of the domus of the same name on the Via Vesuvius and was a public slave and guardian of the temple of Venus who once freed had reached a a certain social and economic status, as shown by the rather monumental tomb and also, as can be deduced from it, by the inscription.

He becomes Augustal, that is to say a member of the college of priests dedicated to imperial worship, as the epigraph recalls: “Diede ludi of Greek and Latin for four days”.

The “Ludi graeci” should be understood as performances in the Greek language “, explains the director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, who explains that this is the first real testimony of performances in the city in the Hellenic language, since until now there were only assumptions.

“It is one of the best preserved skeletons found in the ancient city”, he rocks. The deceased was buried in a small cell measuring 1.6 x 2.4 meters behind the main facade, while in the remaining part of the compound two urns were cremated, one of them in a beautiful glass vessel belonging to a woman named Novia Amabilis, who may have been the wife of Marcus Venerius.

But the burial of Marcus Venerius “is therefore very unusual also in terms of the funeral rite adopted, given that he was an adult man over the age of 60”, they explain, and furthermore, the discovery is completed by the recovery of objects. grave goods, including two glass ointments and numerous fragments of what appears to be cloth.

THE MYSTERY OF DECISION

For the researcher from the University of Valencia “Now the great mystery is why he chose to be buried and not cremated like the two members of his family” whose remains are in the grave in two urns.

“We have several hypotheses, the first is that it was about a person who had a Greek affiliation or a weakness for Greek art and culture because at that time in Greece burial was preferred”, a- he told EFE.

But another part, he explains, “we are still looking at whether it was a personal choice to keep the body uncorrupted and this is very important because it would mean that when it comes to the funeral there was a certain freedom of worship and that strict rules or the fear of rupture were not taken into account, the rites and threats of the Gods. This would suppose that there is an ideological freedom when choosing after death “.

Regarding the details of the mummification, he explains that there is still a lot of work, because now we will have to analyze the substances that covered the body and a kind of tissue also found in the tomb.

“This tissue, these plants or substances that favored mummification can give us the clue whether it was intentional or simply mummified due to the sealed environment of the tomb: with two walls of malt and volcanic stone and Or if the sealing was even intentional to better preserve the body, ”he adds.

The organic remains of the tissues found and other elements of the corpse of Marco Venerius Secundio will be studied in the ArchaeChemis unit, chemical analysis unit of the University of Valencia, under the direction of Gianni Gallelo, researcher of the Department of Prehistory, archeology and ancient history of the said center.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us to unveil this great mystery which appeared in Pompeii and which could change what we knew about funeral traditions in the Roman world”, concludes Alapont.

(with information from the EFE)

KEEP READING: