In the ruins of Pompeii they found 79 graffiti of love and fight between gladiators

Ancient Pompeii never stops telling its story, and this time it does so thanks to technology.

And so, in a wall excavated more than 230 years agoin a corridor that connected the theater area with the Via Stabiana, what was no longer visible to the human eye, thanks to a computational photography technique that acquires a series of images of an object under different lighting directions, is now visible again.

Hay a love story between a woman named Erato and a gladiator, but also a gladiatorial combat scene. There are insults, but also good wishes like this: «Methe, (slave) of Cominia, of Atella, loves Chrestos in her heart. May the Venus of Pompeii be propitious to both of them and may they always live in harmony.»

What was not visible to the human eye, thanks to a new technique, is now visible again (ANSA).

Three hundred inscriptions adorn the wallthrough which millions of visitors passed. Around 200 are known, while 79 were identified.

The project, called Bruits de Couloir («Rumors of the Corridor»), was conceived by Louis Autin and lo‹se Letellier-Taillefer, of the Sorbonne University, and Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, of the University of Quebec in Montreal, in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

Huge amount of graffiti

As reported in the Electronic Magazine of the Pompeii Excavationswas carried out in two campaigns, in 2022 and 2025. This allowed for a comprehensive reinterpretation of the vast collection of graffiti present in this passage, through a multidisciplinary approach that combines epigraphy, archaeology, philology and digital humanities.

Graffiti on the walls of Pompeii (Instagram).

«Technology is the key that opens new rooms of the ancient world, and we must also share them with the public,» said park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel.

«We are working on a project to protect and improve the writings, which add more than 10,000 throughout Pompeiian immense heritage. Only the use of technology can guarantee a future for all this memory of life in Pompeii,» he added.

The adopted methodology uses a virtual grid, documents the spatial and thematic connections between the inscriptions and analyzes the corridor walls with RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging, a computational photography technique that acquires a series of images of an object under different lighting directions). This allows us to see what the human eye cannot see, and more than two centuries after the excavation, New discoveries continue to emerge.

Three hundred inscriptions adorn the wall through which millions of visitors passed (Pompeii Archaeological Park).

At the same time, this technique is essential for the digital preservation of a collection of fragile objects.

The development of a 3D platform that integrates photogrammetry, RTI data and epigraphic metadata will lead to the creation of a new tool for joint visualization and annotation of inscriptions.

To promote the conservation of this important complex of epigraphic inscriptions from Pompeii, concentrated in a single room and unearthed in 1794, the Pompeii Archaeological Park planned cover the corridor, adequately protect the plaster on which the inscriptions were sculpted and facilitate a future integrated visitor experience through technologies developed through new research.

ANSA Agency.

GML