A breakthrough in archaeology reveals a forgotten upper world of Pompeii: researchers uncover the missing floors and a towering private ascent that once crowned the city’s most affluent homes.
Teams from Berlin’s Humboldt University and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii have pieced together these vanished upper levels using advanced 3D modelling. Their study, published in the E-journal Scavi di Pompei, indicates that Pompeii’s wealthiest residents inhabited beneath imposing towers—features that functioned as powerful symbols of status and influence.
These elevated structures, destroyed by the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, provided commanding views over the city and the Bay of Naples.
The investigation began with a puzzling detail at the House of Thiasus, a villa renowned for its frescoed banquet hall. A substantial stone staircase inside the property seemed to end abruptly, seemingly leading nowhere on the ground floor.
Rather than dismissing this anomaly, the researchers questioned what might have existed above. German and Italian scholars focused on the residence, asking whether the grand staircase once connected to a far grander upper story than today’s ruins imply.
A notable staircase appeared to stop without a visible destination on the ground level, prompting a skyward perspective rather than a sole focus on surviving ground-floor remains.
The collaboration produced digital replicas by scanning the extant remains and identifying clues—disconnected stair-ends and cut supports—that pointed to missing floors higher up.
Their analysis suggests the House of Thiasus housed a multi-storey tower, where modest furnishings on lower levels contrasted with a spectacular external staircase that climbed upward to views and spaces now lost to history.
Gabriel Zuchtriegl, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, underscored the importance: “Lost Pompeii comprises the upper floors of buildings, which are essential to understanding life in the ancient city.”
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The 3D modelling approach allows scholars to craft plausible reconstructions that illuminate ancient spaces and social hierarchies.
This shift in Pompeii research emphasizes what the catastrophe destroyed as much as what it preserved, recognizing that the city’s lowest layers were buried while the upper stories and private towers vanished.
Zuchtriegl notes that alongside conventional digging, non-invasive methods—studying and constructing hypothetical reconstructions of non-preserved elements—can enrich our knowledge of the site.
The digital reconstructions depict Pompeii’s elite as they ascended private towers to survey the broader city, overlook the Bay of Naples, and observe the night sky from privileged vantage points now lost to history. Would you argue that these high towers fundamentally shaped social dynamics in ancient Pompeii, or were they mainly displays of wealth? Share your thoughts in the comments.
