Ancient Pompeii’s Hidden Messages, Preserved in Graffiti | Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons | TED

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Introduction - Speaker's Connection to Pompeii

Speaker shares birth date with Mount Vesuvius eruption (August 24th)
Started learning Latin in high school, couldn't connect with Julius Caesar or Ovid's poetry
Wanted to understand ordinary Romans' daily lives and thoughts
Discovered Latin graffiti in college - first time hearing ordinary Romans' voices
Visiting Pompeii allowed standing next to columns, imagining ancient conversations

Modern graffiti: typically illegal/taboo, spray painted or scratched into surfaces like bathroom stalls
Ancient graffiti: welcome/permitted, appeared everywhere (temples, tombs, bars, public spaces, homes)
Creation method: Ancient graffiti scratched into wall plaster using stylus or nail
Etymology: English "graffiti" from Italian word meaning "scratched" (coined by 19th century archaeologists)
Authors: Written by wide variety including marginalized people (women, enslaved) - best evidence for those excluded from literary record
Reason for prevalence: No access to inexpensive writing tools like paper, used walls like modern scrap paper/phones/social media

Birth announcement: "On Saturday August 2nd at around 9:30 PM you vanilla was born" with drawing of baby
- Written by proud parent nearly 2,000 years ago
- Volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. preserved thousands of graffiti
Labyrinth graffito: "This is the Labyrinth the Minotaur lives here" with mythological drawing
- Written inside private home (no taboo about writing in personal space)
Wall commentary: "Oh whoa I'm amazed you haven't fallen down holding up so many scribblings"
- Repeated several times throughout Pompeii
- Shows Pompeians' awareness of graffiti abundance
- This example from amphitheater where gladiators fought

Current research focus: Graffiti written with perishable materials (charcoal, chalk)
Scholarly neglect: Almost totally ignored by modern scholars, very few survived
Characteristics: More flourishing, inventive, elegant than inscribed counterparts
Technique: Easier to draw on wall plaster than inscribe into it
Example: "Victor with fellow Terrace everywhere" written at city gate
- Made with chalk or clot of earth
- Elegant Roman cursive with large flourishes on V, Y, R letters
- Playful branch included to complete message
- Charcoal graffito above showing "Victor" with flourishing V and portrait

Research interest: Ancient aesthetics - what writing style reveals about author and motivations
Upside-down alphabet example: Found in bath house
- Latin alphabet interspersed forwards and backwards (A, X, B, U, C, T, etc.)
- Written upside down (unknown if author stood upside down or twisted body)
- Shows playfulness of Roman graffiti
- Even utilitarian messages written with elegant writing (C and D letter tails cross)
Pompeian priority: Not enough to write on walls - wanted to write beautifully

Location: Small street in residential district, one block off main avenue
Position: Between theater and amphitheater
Graffiti patterns: Many names, mostly male (more men literate than women)
Female literacy: Used to assume very few women literate, but Pompeii graffiti complicated this picture

Prima's greeting: "Prima sends many greetings to secundus"
- Prima/Secundus = first/second in Latin (names or nicknames)
- Written on facade wall plaster (equivalent of tweet/Snapchat - wall posts existed 2,000+ years)
- Roman cursive with economical letter forms (E's become two vertical marks)
- Included interpunct (horizontal dot) between words showing elegant writing
Drawings below: Four boars, three birds, gladiator, ship, partridge
- Scholar Catherine Huntley used developmental psychology suggesting some by children
- Others by adults replicating seen/heard images
- Shows urge to doodle as feature of human spirit

First message: "Secundus two greets his Prima everywhere I ask mistress that you love me"
- Written in capital letters (not cursive like Prima) so wouldn't be missed
- Accentuated with box surrounding for highlighting/official appearance
- Left off M's on words (not pronounced - like saying "gonna" instead of "going to")
Two additional greetings: "Secundus greets us Prima" and "Secundus greets his Prima"
- Written by same person with same instrument
- Consistently left off 'a' in Prima's name (pronunciation issue)
- Shows Romans made spelling mistakes too

Primary purpose: Get message to other person
Secondary motivation: Thrill of discovery - leaving something for someone to find later
Modern parallel: Sticky notes, lunchbox notes, social media posts
Universal human behavior: Taking part in discovery experience

Farewell greeting: "Wineria goodbye" with letter ends made to look like branches
Puzzling graffito: Below farewell, doesn't make sense in Latin
- Possibly first attempt at graffito above or simpler replication attempt
- Shows range from elegant to ineffective attempts
Enslaved person's message: "Amiantos slave of Qualius Caldis a clothes washer"
- Represents group almost completely left out of literary record
- Clothes washing notoriously dirty (used urine as cleaning material)
- Preserves name of enslaved person lost to history

Satora's graffito: "On September 3rd Satora was here"
- Modern equivalent seen at train stations, restrooms
- Satora couldn't know 79 A.D. eruption would preserve her memory
Universal human urge: Writing on walls to leave name behind in space and time "as old as time"
Speaker's conclusion: Consider what messages we're leaving behind and what we hope will last for next generation

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