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archaeologist atPompeiihave key an enormous , passing rarefied bulwark painting depict an ancient mystery cult , at the centre of which is a woman being initiated under the cover of night . The find wasannouncedby the Pompeii Archaeological Park on Wednesday ( Feb. 26 ) as they revealed the fresh excavated House of Thiasus .
The wall painting , which is nearly life - size , runs the length of three wall along a prominent banquet hall , while the 4th wall opens onto a garden . Against a bright red-faced background , there are numerous figures of maenads — distaff follower of Dionysus , the god of wine-coloured — who are depicted as hunter , carrying swords in their hand and slaughter Capricorn on their shoulders . The fresco also depicts young letch , part - goat and part - man creatures , playing the fluting and performing a forfeiture of wine-colored .
A view into the newly excavated House of Thiasus at Pompeii. The walls are decorated with a fresco depicting the initiation rites of an ancient mystery cult.
At the heart and soul of the fresco is an former satyr with a young fair sex who is about to be initiate into the Dionysian mystery cult . The ancient cult , which dates back at least to the Hellenic Greeks of the 5th hundred B.C. , is called a " mystery " because the founding and practices were keep unavowed from outsiders . But the fresco has given expert a new clue to what function on in the rite : Roman initiates may have hunted like the Greek ones before them . The wall painting suggest these mystery ritual echoed that ancient connection between Dionysus and wild beast .
Although many facet of the Dionysian mystery have been lost due to privateness , historic accounts suggest that they involved heavy use of wine and other intoxicating meaning , likeopium , to rush trance - like body politic in followers . Dionysus was also known as a re - born god and became link up with Resurrection of Christ , something that may have been forebode to those initiate into the mysteries .
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A close-up of part of the fresco showing shellfish and butchered animals
The only other example of a large fresco depicting the Dionysian ritual was discovered in 1909 in a house in the suburbia of Pompeii known as the Villa of the Mysteries . These murals also depict satyrs , maenad and a womanhood being initiated into the furore in readying for marriage , but they miss any hunting imagery .
Both examples of Dionysus - themed frescoes , however , reveal the " wild , untameable side of women,“Gabriel Zuchtriegel , the director of Pompeii Archaeological Park , say in the statement . This is the kind of woman who " break detached from male order to trip the light fantastic freely , go hunt and use up in the raw meat in the mountains and the woodwind , " he said .
The mural of the Dionysian mysteries in both the Villa of the Mysteries and the fresh discovered House of Thiasus day of the month to the middle of the first century B.C. , meaning they were over a century erstwhile when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 , preserving the painting for two millenary . They also propose a growing religious crisis , Zuchtriegel say , as festival celebrating Dionysus wereostensibly bannedas part of a clinch down on underground rituals in Italy in 186 B.C. The two murals advise that the proscription was widely ignored — at least in the part .
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" The discovery we are showing is historical , " Italian Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli articulate in the affirmation . The fresco " is an exceptional historic document and , together with the fresco of the Villa of the Mysteries , is one - of - a - kind , making Pompeii an extraordinary will to an aspect of Hellenic Mediterranean life that is largely unknown . "
The House of Thiasus , named after the word for a group of Dionysian revelers , is now on display as part of the tours of the on-going excavations at Pompeii .
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