In the ancient city of Pompeii, long before the term “street art” was coined, residents engaged in the practice of inscribing jokes, insults, declarations of love, and explicit drawings on the walls. Recently, an international research team utilized advanced digital imaging techniques to uncover 79 previously unseen inscriptions in a narrow corridor that once connected two theaters.
The research project, known as “Bruits de couloir” (Corridor Whispers), was led by Louis Autin and Éloïse Letellier-Taillefer from Sorbonne University in Paris, along with Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, an expert in ancient Roman history at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Letellier-Taillefer, an archaeologist focusing on Pompeii’s theaters, shared her observations on the abundance of graffiti with Le Guennec, who was studying ancient Roman inns. This led to a collaborative effort to explore graffiti as a form of popular communication.
The team conducted two rounds of fieldwork in 2022 and 2025, resulting in the reinterpretation of around 300 inscriptions on the corridor walls and the discovery of 79 new inscriptions. Among these findings was a partially obscured declaration of love towards an individual named Erato, an allusion to one of the nine muses in Greco-Roman mythology associated with love poetry.
The graffiti found in Pompeii offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, reflecting the diverse social strata of the ancient city. The inscriptions include depictions of gladiator battles, portraits, animals, ships, and symbolic representations like phalluses, which were common across the Roman world. These drawings also provide insights into class and gender dynamics, revealing the presence of women in the inscriptions but seldom as authors or subjects of posthumous tributes, indicating limited access to education for certain groups.
The corridor, which connected the Teatro Grande and Odeion in Pompeii, served as a hub for various individuals, including spectators, traders, soldiers, and citizens. Deciphering the faint inscriptions on the walls was made possible through Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), a photographic technique that creates a 3D digital model from multiple images taken under varying lighting conditions.
The Archaeological Park of Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, holds significant historical value, with over 10,000 graffiti documented across the site. The corridor is considered a crucial space for understanding the daily lives of Pompeii’s inhabitants and provides essential insights into the ancient world.
While artificial intelligence was not utilized in the corridor analysis, recent advancements in AI technology have been employed at the park to reconstruct past events, such as a man fleeing the Vesuvius eruption. Looking ahead, researchers are eager to explore how AI could bring ancient graffiti to life. The research team plans to launch a digital platform in June that will offer public access to detailed photogrammetry and RTI data, allowing individuals to immerse themselves in the corridor’s historical whispers.