Dr Sophie Hay
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pompei79.bsky.social
Dr Sophie Hay
@pompei79.bsky.social
5.9K followers 180 following 700 posts
Just an archaeologist who works at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii
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pompei79.bsky.social
Happy #Halloween!
A wonderful 2nd century AD Roman mosaic found near Antioch, Turkey showing a skeleton, cup of wine in hand, reclining on the floor of a dining room in a house reminding guests to enjoy life: ‘ευφρόσυνος’
Detail of a black mosaic with a white skull, the boney arm of the skeleton raised, and a few ribs. Mosaic with black background, reclining skeleton with cup of wine in hand with two loaves of bread and an amphora upright in a stand.
October 31, 2025 at 5:45 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
I particular like the colours of Vesuvius looking as though someone has fashioned it out of a lump of smooshed-together-different-coloured Play-Doh.
View from up high looking down into Pompeii with the via Nocera gently winding its way up the slope under the arch of the Nocera Gate. Beyond Vesuvius looms with its peak in shadow and its foothills are speckled greens and browns.
October 25, 2025 at 11:47 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
Towering research in #Pompeii.
Having been continually baffled by the grandeur of the staircase and confused by the high second window, this architectural hypothesis makes a lot of sense. I love the idea of a Pompeian tower!
pompeiisites.org/en/comunicat...
Pompeii, a domus with a tower? A hypothesis based on “digital archaeology” developed by the Park and the Humboldt University of Berlin: the models are thought to be the villas of the super-rich     - ...
The article providing an in-depth analysis was published today in the e-journal of the Pompeii excavations. They didn’t reach the levels of medieval cities such as Bologna or San Giminiano, … keep it ...
pompeiisites.org
October 21, 2025 at 1:28 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Was too busy admiring the bricks & marvelling at the fact cars can drive over the Roman road paving beneath the Arco Felice (Bacoli) this evening to take a photo of the Roman arch but it seems forgivable all things considered.

Here’s an 1896 photo instead (fotografia.cultura.gov.it/iccd/item/MP...)
A sepia photo of the 20m high 6m wide Roman arch straddling the basalt paved via Domitiana
October 9, 2025 at 10:10 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Surprisingly yet pleasingly complex - the tile elements required to reconstruct a Roman roof over the House of the Faun, #Pompeii. Beautiful watercolour, pencil, and ink illustrations by Pasquale Maria Veneri dating to 1843 on display in the National Archaeological Museum
In Naples.
Watercolour showing different tile elements both flat (tegulae) and curved (imbrices) and antifixes and water spouts needed for a Roman roof Plan of the House of the Faun in watercolour showing the reconstructed rooflines. Reconstruction of a roofline in plan and section Full image of the three elements as one watercolour illustration
October 5, 2025 at 5:12 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
That magical moment when the pumice is gently cleared away revealing, for the first time in nearly 2000 years, a white mosaic.
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii
Most of the image is of a white mosaic and the top part is small pumice stones
September 22, 2025 at 10:54 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
The fragments of the Forma Urbis – the marble map of Rome made towards the end of Emperor Severus’ reign – set into Nolli’s beautiful 18th century map of the city is breathtaking.
Fun to spot existing monuments but wondrous to see the now missing buildings.
www.sovraintendenzaroma.it/content/il-m...
A printed map of the Colosseum with incomplete marble fragments of the monument overlying it A printed map of the area around the Theatre of Pompey with incomplete marble fragments of the monument overlying it. Nolli’s map forms the floor surface around it. A printed map of Nolli’s Rome with incomplete marble fragments with a plan of a monument, set into it A printed map of the Circus Maximus with incomplete fragments of the monument overlying it.
September 19, 2025 at 5:44 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
ITALIA!
In onda stasera un nuovo e finale episodio di ‘Pompei le Nuove Verità: La Casa dei Tesori’.

mediasetinfinity.mediaset.it/video/pompei...

È una meravigliosa lettera d'amore a Pompei e ai suoi antichi abitanti, celebrata attraverso le ultime scoperte degli scavi a Regio IX.
Pompei: le nuove verità: Ep. 4 - La casa dei tesori Video | Mediaset Infinity
Gli archeologi completano lo scavo più grande dell'ultima generazione, dove trovano oro e lusso in una delle case più ricche di Pompei.
mediasetinfinity.mediaset.it
September 13, 2025 at 10:31 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
#Pompei by night

A wonderful initiative by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii inviting visitors to visit a few houses by night. It’s an incredibly evocative experience as from the depths of darkness, light glows from rooms as if someone is at home.
Info here: pompeiisites.org/comunicati/i...
Looking down the hedged garden towards the fresco showing Venus reclining in a shell. Soft light within the hose illuminates a blue frescoed room and a column in a portico around a garden. The garden is shrouded in darkness Lights illuminate the yellow and red painted colonnaded portico of a Roman house leaving the garden shrouded in darkness
September 9, 2025 at 6:25 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
‘Below the Clouds’. A beautiful trailer for what looks to be a beguiling film by Gianfranco Rosi about Naples.
The title reminded me how Vesuvius somehow heightens the drama of the cloud formations above it.
Watch the film trailer here: youtu.be/eF_RPx6CXFw
View up the main basalt paved road with shops and buildings on either side in brick and stone. A break in the white clouds reveals the summit of Mount Vesuvius A pinky orange cloud seemingly erupting from Vesuvius. The porta Nocera of Pompeii lies slightly faded in colour in the dusk light. Outline of Vesuvius on the horizon across the Bay of Naples with dramatic clouds above it View of the outline of Vesuvius looming above the houses of ancient Pompeii and above clouds swirl against a blue sky seemingly like an explosion from the cone of the volcano
August 31, 2025 at 10:26 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
The Large Gymnasium and the Amphitheatre but mainly the trees #Pompeii
A view across the large gymnasium towards the amphitheatre whose arches can just be seen. The foreground is the top of a glass display case reflecting all the trees in the area as if it was a pool of water.
August 29, 2025 at 5:09 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Honouring all the young tesserae that didn’t grow up to be a mosaic.

A reused amphora housing thousands of loose white tesserae in the House of the Thiasus, #Pompeii.
#MosaicMonday
A close up of loose white tesserae A broken terracotta amphorae containing the loose, white tesserae A broken terracotta amphorae containing the loose, white tesserae
August 25, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Dr Sophie Hay
greekmythcomix.bsky.social
It’s (one of two surmised dates for) Pompeii Volcano Day!

I made this video with @pompei79.bsky.social to explain how the eruption affected the victims and allowed for casts of their bodies to be made.

youtu.be/zWXnTsTnGYM?...
The Casts of Pompeii - explaining the Vesuvius eruption and the Fiorelli Process
YouTube video by Greek Myth Comix
youtu.be
August 24, 2025 at 1:19 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Goodness knows how I had never been in the House of the Red Walls, #Pompeii but I hadn’t until today.
The two rooms decorated with a rich red background engulf you, spindly architecture lift the space, and the figurative panels are little windows of brightness. Utterly stunning.
Rich red background. On the left are vertical spindly columns on a white backdrop decorated in soft hues of blue and red. A vertical border of straight and curved tendrils and a square panel with a scene of Apollo Citarista sitting at a table playing his lyre for a Muse. A red background with a central panel depicting Galatea and Polyphemus or a Nymph and Silenus (depending on who you believe) in an amorous position. Flanking each side of the panel are the most delicate and preposterously spindly architectural elements. A curved border frames the central panel. Red background with straight, curved, and swirling architectural decoration. Apollo citarista seated on a bench playing a lyre for a Muse standing behind a table
August 22, 2025 at 6:36 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
If this was the late 18th century I’d be setting up my easel right now. #Vesuvius
A pinky orange cloud seemingly erupting from Vesuvius. The porta Nocera of Pompeii lies slightly faded in colour in the dusk light.
August 20, 2025 at 7:04 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Buon #Ferragosto!

Fresco from #Pompeii (possibly from Fullonica of Sestius Venustus) and a unique example of a group of just women celebrating in what looks to be a rather wonderfully rowdy dining scene with upturned glassware, music being played and a woman holding aloft a ladle.
A woman wearing cream and yellow garments holds a silver ladle aloft. Behind her couches of women seasoned a wooden table look on or play flutes. In the background two slaves pull back the curtain to gaze at the merriment
August 15, 2025 at 11:39 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
You can almost hear the crowd roar as the gladiator fells a fellow combatant who looks at him in mercy from the sandy arena floor.
A graffito etched into the wall of a room in the House of Obellius Firmus, #Pompeii
A gladiator with a plumed helmet and bindings holding a shield. His arm raised holding a spear seemingly about to make a fatal stab. Lying on the floor, another gladiator holds a shield over his body as if to protect himself. Drawing of the graffito in Martin Langner’s volume Antike Graffitizeichnungen: Motive, Gestaltung und Bedeutung: 11 (Palilia, 11) 2001
August 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Dramatic end to the day. Fire on the slopes of Vesuvius lit by the setting sun. #Pompeii
A blazing orange billowing smoke-filled sky blowing over Vesuvius. Pompeii’s Porta Nocera in the foreground.
August 8, 2025 at 7:37 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
AMERICA!
The new and final episode of ‘Pompeii The New Dig’ airs tonight on PBS!
It follows the progress of the excavation team and all the spectacular and poignant discoveries made in the last year. It’s a beautiful love letter to Pompeii.
www.pbs.org/video/traile...
WTVP Spots | Trailer | PPND | Pompeii: The New Dig; House of Treasures. | Season 2025
Join the final chapter of Pompeii's largest excavation in a generation.
www.pbs.org
August 6, 2025 at 8:13 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
AUSTRALIA! I gather that the final episode of the excellent documentary ‘Pompeii: The New Dig’ that followed the latest excavations in #Pompeii has arrived on your shores and is available to watch on SBS.

www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-...
Pompeii: The New Dig
The excavation of an entire block of the city unearths what life was like before the eruption and the horror faced by the victims, and those who survived, when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.
www.sbs.com.au
August 4, 2025 at 5:05 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
What a privilege to see the wild boar mosaic up close. The blood spot in the eye, the redness in the mouth and the blueish tesserae making up the diffused shadows.
Quite the welcome in the entrance hall of the recently conserved House of the Boar, #Pompeii
Detail of the mosaic: the boar’s head looking down with its mouth open just enough to see the red tongue. The mosaic boar against a white background propped up on its front legs. View through the house from the entrance hallway across the atrium and onto the terrace which had a majestic view of the Lattari mountain range.
July 15, 2025 at 5:49 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
Even Vesuvius wears a little hat in this hot weather. #Pompeii
View up the via Nocera through the Nocera gate of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background with a flat white cloud crowning its peak.
July 7, 2025 at 4:50 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
Late evening of work in Pompeii yesterday but the reward of an empty site bathed in glorious warm light was a privilege.
View down the via di Mercurio towards the arch of Caligula and the forum beyond. The sky above the Lattari hills glows a soft hazy yellowy orangey View down an empty street with warm evening sunshine illuminating the walls. Mountains form the backdrop with a soft blue sky
July 1, 2025 at 6:19 AM
pompei79.bsky.social
The BBC series ‘Pompeii: The New Dig’ just won a Gold Tower at the New York Festivals TV & Films Awards!🏆
Well deserved honour for all who brought the wonder of an excavation to life through those who worked on site & the incredible stories they unravelled
tvfilm.newyorkfestivals.com/Winners/Winn...
Publicity photo for the programme: in the foreground someone brushes clean a find with pompeii and Vesuvius behind them
June 9, 2025 at 8:29 PM
pompei79.bsky.social
UPDATE:
PBS will air the new 4th episode of ‘Pompeii: The New Dig’ on Wednesday 6th August.

America, please forgive us Europeans who write dates day-month-year and not month-day-year…. You see the confusion? Oooops!
pompei79.bsky.social Dr Sophie Hay @pompei79.bsky.social · Mar 19
America, PBS has just confirmed that the brand new episode of ‘Pompeii: The New Dig’ documentary that lovingly follows the current excavations of a large and sumptuous house in Region IX will air on Sunday 8th June 2025.
Two amphorae sit in the last few centimetres of pumice during excavations and lean up against a frescoed wall that has been partially gauged out in order to lay a lead pipe.
June 9, 2025 at 8:11 PM