Apart from the likes of bravo and pizza, graffiti must be one of the first Italian words that English-speakers learn in everyday life. As for why the English word comes directly from the Italian, perhaps it has something to do with the history of writing on the walls — a history that, in Western civilization, stretches at least as far back as the time of the Roman Empire. The Fire of Learning video above offers a selection of translated pieces of the more than 11,000 pieces of ancient Roman graffiti found etched into the preserved walls of Pompeii: “Marcus loves Spedusa”; “Phileros is a eunuch”; “Secundus took a crap here” (written three times); “Atimetus got me pregnant”; and “On April 19th, I made bread.”
Crude though some of these may sound, the narrator emphasizes that “many, many of the prominent pieces of graffiti, especially in Pompeii, are too sexual or violent to show here,” comparing their sensibility to that of “a high-school bathroom stall.” You can read more of them at The Ancient Graffiti Project, whose archive is browsable through categories like “love,” “poetry,” “food,” and “gladiators” (as decent a summary as any of life in ancient Rome).
Romans didn’t just write on the walls — a practice that seems to have been encouraged, at least in some places — they also drew on them, as evidenced by what you can see in the figural graffiti section, as well as the examples in the video.
Another rich archive of ancient graffiti comes from a surprising location: the Egyptian pyramids, then as now a major tourist attraction. Rather than posting their reviews of the attraction on the internet, in our twenty-first-century manner, ancient Roman tourists wrote directly on its surface. “I visited and did not like anything except the sarcophagus,” says one inscription; “I can not read the hieroglyphics,” complains another, in a manner that may sound awfully familiar these millennia later. “We have urinated in our beds,” declares another piece of writing, discovered on the door of a Pompeii inn. “Host, I admit we should not have done this. If you ask why? There was no chamber pot.” Consider it confirmed: the ancient world, too, had Airbnb guests.
Related content:
High-Tech Analysis of Ancient Scroll Reveals Plato’s Burial Site and Final Hours
Demystifying the Activist Graffiti Art of Keith Haring: A Video Essay
Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in the Ruins of Pompeii
Tour the World’s Street Art with Google Street Art
Big Bang Big Boom: Graffiti Stop-Motion Animation Creatively Depicts the Evolution of Life
The Only Written Eye-Witness Account of Pompeii’s Destruction: Hear Pliny the Younger’s Letters on the Mount Vesuvius Eruption
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
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