a painting of “pizza” discovered on a fresco in the ruins of the Roman city

Were we already eating pizza 2,000 years ago? A funny question that arises from a funny discovery in Pompeii, a few kilometers from Naples: a painting that looks like a pizza.

This still life was discovered during excavations on the walls of an ancient house in the famous Roman city, the archaeological site announced on Tuesday June 27.

She sits enthroned on a silver platter next to a cup of wine, a garland of strawberry trees, pomegranates and dates. This “pizza” is round, rather small and thick, domed on the sides, like the Neapolitan pizza: different from the Roman one, of course.

All that’s missing are the tomatoes and the mozzarella

What we see “looks like a pizza, but obviously it’s not”, assures the director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, because tomatoes, which arrived in Europe in the 16th century, and mozzarella are missing. But the resemblance is amazing and the quality of the painting remarkable. This still life represents a Xénia. It is a present of hospitality offered to guests in the Greek tradition from the third to the first century BC. As soon as they arrived, the others knew what was going to be served to them. If our contemporary pizza does not go back so far at the time, already, 2,000 years ago, bread ovens did indeed exist. The Pompeian house, where the fresco was discovered, also housed a bakery with an adjoining oven.