Pompeii, new fresco found in excellent condition with the myth of Frisso and Elle

In Pompeii Archaeological Park, a mythological-themed fresco depicting Frisso and Elle fleeing on the Golden Fleece ram has been found from the excavations of a house adjoining the House of Leda in Regio V, Insula 6. It is “a fresco in an excellent state of preservation,” as Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel put it, depicting “a myth typical of ancient Greece, but also of Pompeii, where Greek myth is very much present in all homes and is also an example of how myth, storytelling through images, wall decoration becomes part of a lived environment like this small house, not very large, but richly decorated, which tries through the paintings to emulate, to imitate the tone of life of the elites.”

The unearthed fresco shows two refugees at sea fromancient Greece, Frisso and Elle, brother and sister, who flee their home because they have been driven out by their stepmother, who has bribed the oracle of Delphi to have the children killed so that the famine that has befallen their homeland will end. The two siblings are rescued by the goddess Hera, they escape on theGolden Fleece ram, and on the strait between Europe and Asia (named after Elle herself, or the Hellespont) she slips from the ram and dies by drowning. In the fresco she is seen disappearing in the waves, while her brother Frisso survives.

The decoration emerged as part of the interventions that are affecting the already known rooms of the House of Leda, which emerged between 2018 and 2019, and the rooms of two neighboring domus.

Pompeii, new fresco found in excellent condition with the myth of Frisso and Elle

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