Frozen in Time: Stunning New Frescoes Emerge at Pompeii

Nearly 2,000 years after Vesuvius buried it in ash, Pompeii keeps giving up its secrets. In 2024, archaeologists unveiled a magnificent banqueting hall with elegant black walls painted with mythological scenes from the Trojan War.

The frescoes — of Helen and Paris, of Apollo and Cassandra — were as vivid as the day they were made, a window into how wealthy Romans dined, talked and showed off their learning.

Each new dig at Pompeii reminds us that ancient painting was not the faded relic we imagine, but a riot of colour, storytelling and sophistication.

Image: “Frescoed wall from the Casa del Centauro in Pompeii excavated in 1829 by Wilhelm Zahn” — Wilhelm Johann Karl Zahn (d. 1871), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.