Officials Just Unveiled Massive Ancient Artworks Depicting a Mysterious Unknown City

3 min readHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Discovered in the 1990s, the world’s largest wall mosaic, part of the largest Roman bath complex ever created, will soon open to the public for the first time.The site near the Colosseum in Rome features an impressive fresco to pair with the wall mosaic.Experts aren’t sure of the art’s origin story, but believe it could be related to a palace constructed by Emperor Nero around 65 C.E.The grandeur of the Roman Empire’s original seat of power shines through the empire’s largest bath complex, which is adorned with the world’s largest wall mosaic. Rediscovered in the 1990s, officials now plan to open Rome’s restored site to the public, allowing the first public viewings of the Painted City fresco and the Great Mosaic alongside each other within the expansive Baths of Trajan.All three elements—fresco, mosaic, and bath complex—impress individually, but taken together, they represent a major cultural monument of the Roman Empire. Archaeologists found the fresco and mosaic in a buried gallery under the Baths of Trajan, which crown the Oppian Hill overlooking the Colosseum. The artworks, though, appear to be older than the baths themselves—and they may have imperial origins.The Baths of Trajan, which were the largest in the world at the time of their construction, were designed by Apollodorus of Damascus under the direction of Emperor Trajan in 109 C.E., but the fresco and mosaic likely predated the bath complex. Trajan’s architects built over the wreckage of Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea palace, which was begun in 65 C.E. on the Oppian Hill and left unfinished after Nero’s death in 68 C.E. That timeline raises the tantalizing possibility that the fresco and mosaic originally decorated the emperor's palace. But even less certain than their origins is their subject matter.“We don’t know what city [they refer] to, but it must have been a particularly well-known one,” Claudio Parisi Presicce, Rome’s cultural superintendent, told the Associated Press.The 107-square-foot Painted City fresco offers a bird’s-eye view of a walled maritime city, composed largely with blue and terra cotta coloring and made up of painted buildings, a temple, a theater, towers, and public piazzas, all seen from above. The Great Mosaic depicts decorative columns, plinths, and architectural elements with a view from above the port city, but also includes people in more intimate scenes, such as a poet adorned with a crown of laurel.“They are truly unique in the world, both from the point of view of artistic beauty and the historic and documental importance,” Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said at the site’s unveiling, according to the Associated Press.Now the public can see it all. Officials spent early September testing the display, only letting in small clusters of 15 people at a time, to see how the well-preserved ancient artwork responds to the increased traffic and a changing environment.Presicce said restoration work improved visibility, removed surface deposits, and consolidated the grouting to ensure that the surface remains in place. The mayor added that while the blues and terra cotta coloring may have faded a bit, they remain well-preserved after hiding underground for centuries.As part of the public opening, visitors can also investigate an above-ground semicircular wall known as an exedra, believed to have once served as a library. “The niches in the wall appear to have held books and documents,” Gualtieri said, according to London’s The Times.The mosaic is 33 feet high and 52 feet wide. “We think it’s the biggest wall mosaic ever found in the Roman world, and we are still digging to find where it stops,” Francesco Pacetti, an archaeologist working on the project, told The Times.The art stretches across four different levels, with the top levels offering more intimate close-ups of people—described as theatrical scenes—and the bottom showing the mystery city’s layout as seen from above.Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.