Discovery of fresco portraying Dionysian mysteries at Pompeii

https://pompeiisites.org/en/comunicati/pompeii-discovery-of-a-room-with-frescoes-depicting-the-initiation-into-the-mysteries-and-the-dionysiac-procession/

by dr_dshiv • 1 year ago

149 85 1 year ago

pompeiisites.org

echelon• 1 year ago

[...] about to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies and is reborn and who promises the same destiny to his followers.

Sounds an awful lot like Christianity.

I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity".

It would appear there are a lot of similarities to contemporary cults.

the frieze can be dated to the 40s-30s BC
In antiquity, there were a series of cults, including the cult of Dionysus, that were only accessible to those who performed an initiation ritual, as illustrated in the Pompeian frieze. They were known as “mystery cults” because their secrets could only be known by initiates. The cults were often linked to the promise of a new blissful life, both in this world and in the afterlife.

How related are the ideas of Christianity to these mystery cults?

jfengel• 1 year ago

It sounds like a lot of religions. It's a pretty common idea.

Christianity certainly had mystery cults, but so did all of the other Mediterranean religions, including its immediate ancestor Judaism.

It's hard to tell how much Christianity cribbed from other religions and how much is just the same idea recurring over and over because it's a common human theme.

Your pastors were wrong to say that Christianity is totally unprecedented. But neither is it just a cynical pastiche of existing ideas. It arose out of the time and place that surrounded its creation. Like all human ideas it's a blend of old and new thoughts.

panagathon2• 1 year ago

You can read Brian Muraresku's The Immortality Key for a detailed exploration of this topic.

It certainly isn't beyond criticism, but it's points are substantive and well referenced, giving the reader enough scope to tackle the controversial points themselves, not just take the authors presentation on face value.

ithkuil• 1 year ago

A good interview with him: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/346...

felizuno• 1 year ago

Check out The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku, it has a few theories on through lines. The book is about these mystery cults, and specifically how they may have been using and early form of LSD. Part of the theory is the classically reported ego death experience might be what is referenced by the rebirth/resurrection claims. As for overlaps with Christianity, there are lots of fun theories including that John the Baptist was an initiate and may have actually initiated Jesus. This is a little difficult to square with the fact that the greek mystery cults claim to have exclusively initiated women, but hey they don't call them mystery cults because they are fully understood.

panagathon2• 1 year ago

That's only potentially true for the Dionysian. Others were open to both. See 76e in Plato's Meno, for reference.

dismalaf• 1 year ago

I mean, there's a bunch of religions that have figures that die and are reborn in some way. There's also dharmic religions that believe in various degrees of escaping the cycle of death and rebirth.

Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc...

As for Dionysus, he was more of an Osiris-figure... Resurrected from pieces in the underworld and his death-rebirth was associated with the seasons especially the growing and harvest of wine. The practices of the cult was to enter an ecstatic frenzy while drinking wine (probably laced with psychedelics). If he did influence Christianity it would be to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities. But IMO Christianity probably derived from dharmic religions (the Buddha was known to early Christians...). But that's another topic.

tsimionescu• 1 year ago

Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc...

I think the final resurrection concept mostly comes from Judaism, where the Messiah will come and resurrect the people of Israel.

AStonesThrow5• 1 year ago

> to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities.

The NT arose in a Hellenistic context, but the OT was inherently anti-Egypt and that's where you'll see more direct references (Book of Exodus, ten plagues, etc.)

By the Apostolic Age/early Church, Egyptian deities were syncretized and interpreted by the Greeks, and Egypt was a safer place to hang out during the Massacre of the Innocents. But Jesus returned home with all the Moses we'd ever need.

AStonesThrow5• 1 year ago

> no other religion is like Christianity

Isn't that a tautology? LDS, JWs, Messianic Jews, Oneness Pentecostals, Iglesia ni Cristo: are they Christianity or another religion? How different can a religion be until it isn't "like Christianity"? Soundbite doing some heavy lifting out of context.

The NT writers used Koine Greek to evangelize a Hellenistic world. Anybody from a pagan tradition reading those books could've found aspects of Dionysus in Jesus, and because Greek Paganism wasn't untrue but simply incomplete, bound to a territory and lacking in universality.

Pagans personify and explain nature and the supernatural through deities, while for Christians, the Holy Trinity is the lens through which we see all truth, beauty and goodness.

krapp3• 1 year ago

The Trinity is a recent addition to Christian doctrine, relatively speaking, and certainly not universal if one considers the entire history of the religion.

It is delightfully weird, though, in a "we have polytheism at home" kind of way.

neuronic• 1 year ago

Appear? One of the only ways to get people to convert was to actually take some of their beliefs and traditions and assimilate them into Christianity.

Just google how the Christmas tree came to be or better yet Christmas itself... the Bible is also just an anthology, a politically (!) hand-picked collection of texts, from various streams which fit the interests of the dominant sect at the time (400+ years after Jesus!).

Also... "Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism,..." [1]

It's all related.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

gpderetta• 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism

sapphicsnail2• 1 year ago

I'm not sure why you're being down voted. You're not the first person to make that observation. There's an actually an ancient author who wrote a whole epic about Dionysius and also wrote his own version of the Gospel of John. Ideas have always been moving around and mixing.

Cthulhu_2• 1 year ago

I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity".

These pastors should go back to school; they should have gotten education about other religions in their training so that they fully understand the origins, similarities and differences between them. They should know the origins of their own religion, like how the date of Christmas was established in the 4th century based on the date of the winter solstice in the Roman Empire.

These pastors are reciting dogma instead of learning.

bjourne3• 1 year ago

That Christmas is a Christianized version of Saturnalia is a myth: https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/is-christmas-a-pagan-r...

hn_acc1• 1 year ago

These pastors are reciting dogma instead of learning.

But isn't that more or less the point? I was raised in that tradition (evangelical) and the more you dig, the more you find the "simple stuff" isn't quite so 100% true or reliable, has a pretty convoluted history, etc.. Which makes you wonder and doubt and question, and for me, after seeing what N.A. evangelicalism is promoting these days, de-convert. And I know I'm not the only one who followed that path - many who wanted "a deeper understanding of it all" ended up deconverting because the "truths" they were taught weren't quite so true after all.

By NOT teaching the historical details and just telling pastors the "high school summary" at seminary (in the same way that high school students aren't taught full quantum mechanics, but still study the basic theories of atoms, electrons, orbitals, ...), they can 100% believe and probably be more effective. If they 100% believe you're going to hell, they will work very hard to save you. If they're "well, the Bible borrowed this from these 3 other religions and integrated it over time and the current theories are different from what they were 30 years ago", they might not be as fervent and also be less convincing if they admit their doubts to you. Which might also cause you to question, study more, deconvert, etc. And there is a huge percentage of people who WANT concrete yes/no hard-line answers to difficult questions so they can stop thinking about it.

bjourne3• 1 year ago

What distinguishes Christianity from contemporary pagan cults and Judaism are the concepts of sin, repentance, salvation, and atonement. In Christian theology God sacrificed Jesus to offer people the option of "paying off their sin debts" which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to pay. This is in stark contrast to the mystery cults for which enlightenment came through secret knowledge. Romans in general didn't really think in terms of sin.

That said, we don't know exactly what rituals the earliest Christians practiced and to outsiders they may have looked similar to the rituals of the mystery cults. Especially since Christians at times were persecuted all over the Roman empire and therefore may have had to keep a low profile.

bregma• 1 year ago

Offering a human sacrifice to an angry god to redeem us of our sins is not that uncommon and certainly not unique to Christianity. Perhaps what makes Christianity unique is the ritualistic cannibalism in many major sects, but there is much less archaeological remains of such practices in other religions and lack of evidence is not proof.

cmrdporcupine• 1 year ago

What makes Christianity unique is its attempt at universalism. Prior to it there weren't really belief systems that tried to make a claim to being both exclusively true and universal across all people. e.g. Judaism was/is explicitly for the Jewish people, the Romans freely borrowed from other pantheons and had no concern about other peoples worshiping whatever gods they wanted, etc. etc.

Christians are the first major belief system we know of that declares not only that it is universal for all humans, but that if you don't believe/practice its specific faith you are damned, and that it is the duty of every Christian to convert others to the faith. This is one of the reasons why many in pre-Constantine Rome found it so objectionable and disruptive.

Islam obviously followed in the same tradition.

Various strands of Christianity go even further, making your practices almost entirely irrelevant and the inside of your thoughts being the key determinant on whether you are eternally damned or not. Ancient belief systems were very concerned about rituals and practices and sacrifices etc, vs e.g. strains of modern evangelical Protestantism that is obsessed with your feelings/thoughts/internal mental state.

shrubble• 1 year ago

No other religion has ever had quite the impact on the world as Christianity; but I’m not sure if that’s the context of what your pastor was saying.

krapp3• 1 year ago

That's more due to the power of the imperialist governments that spread the religion by force rather than any innate property of the religion itself.

amanaplanacanal• 1 year ago

For me the starkest contrast is that Christianity introduced the idea of thoughtcrime, though they didn't call it that. In Christianity it is important that you believe the correct things, whereas the pagan religions only cared if you performed the rituals.

dr_dshiv2• 1 year ago

Emperor Justinian instituted that… and built the Hagia Sophia from the ashes of the ensuing riots

triyambakam2• 1 year ago

The bolding of certain phrases and words makes me think of how many popular language models write. And even more interesting now is the skepticism of, "Did a human write this?" I'm not a purist and use models at times in my writing, but try to keep it matching my own voice and what I would actually say.

janwillemb• 1 year ago

This made me also think of an LLM. But looking into their other press releases this seems to be their style if writing, also for the press releases predating LLMs.

the-rc• 1 year ago

This is the way Italians write, especially academics, translated into English words. Even in mundane, everyday documents the style has plenty of fillers and embellishments, unlike the more straightforward one of everyday English.

darkwater• 1 year ago

It's just Italian style for this kind of press releases, especially if it involves publicly funded studies. Source: I'm Italian.

lurk2• 1 year ago

It's like they figured out how to put emphatic hand gestures into the written word.

Cthulhu_2• 1 year ago

You're beating around the bush but you seem to want to accuse this of being AI generated, just because it's unfamiliar to you. I get it though, and it's going to get worse. Was this written by an AI? Who knows? Maybe I put all my HN comments over the years into an LLM and it's now writing comments for me?

triyambakam2• 1 year ago

No, I was not trying to make that point inadvertently.

ojo-rojo2• 1 year ago

The painting is described in detail, but there is no photograph of it. Isn't that strange? Did I miss a link somewhere?

Jtsummers• 1 year ago

Check the bottom of the page.

ojo-rojo2• 1 year ago

That's what I missed. Very very nice to see the detailed photos.

rob74• 1 year ago

Thanks for the pointer! Those photos are the typographical version of a post-credits scene in movies - you generally don't expect to find something interesting below the listing of all participants in the project (even below the social media icons!).

defrost• 1 year ago

There's a photo at the top of the article: https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/MegalografiaRegi...

There's an interview held in front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6pisszEyo

and there are other articles with more detailed images: https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca...

monero-xmr2• 1 year ago

The wealthy ancients cared so much about aesthetics. Imagine hosting a party in such a room, surrounded by such beauty, the paintings, the columns.

I live in a very old home, built by a wealthy man almost 200 years ago. The cost to rehabilitate this property was staggering and I had to pay extra to get foreign workmen to fly in who had the skillset necessary to do the work properly. If you have the money and appreciate aesthetics, living in an ornate home that is beautiful inside and out is a pleasure.

The Scandinavian modern minimalist style is so anathema to me, it goes against everything we as humans appreciate. Classical style, Greek columns, open spaces, ornate decoration. The ancients understood this and modernity forgot what these styles provide to the human psyche.

I see these monstrosities for sale in the $5 million+ range that wealthy Americans build as new construction. You don’t need or want ~10,000 sqft. You want livable space that gives you emotional resonance. You need a home that is pleasing to work in, relax in, sleep in, view externally and internally. I think modern society has forgotten so many things. You can build things for the same cost that reflect these ideals but for whatever reason we don’t anymore.

Every room in my house has a vibe. I care very deeply about the vibes of every single location. The walls, the art, the motifs, how it appears as you walk up the frontage, enter the vestibule, the space, what it means. Guests to my home sense this instantly. I can’t express the pleasure I get from living in a house I have perfectly created to my exact intention.

Some people argue it is financially beneficial to rent vs. own. I argue the benefit of owning, having exact precision and control over every aspect of the surroundings you spend the majority of your life in, far surpasses whatever benefit not investing money into your own home can provide. I want every moment to be surrounded by pleasurable aesthetics as much as I can.

mattlondon3• 1 year ago

Each to their own - I personally find the ornate decoration, richly coloured walls, large pictures etc quite unpleasant, almost eerie. It is mentally too noisy and overwhelming - I much prefer a simpler approach - not necessarily "minimalist", but simple, light and plain are best for me. Calming, relaxing, peaceful, quiet.

More important than decoration though for me is the quality of the architecture, the quality of the space it self - light, human-scale, how you move through the spaces, outlook and views etc

monero-xmr2• 1 year ago

That’s a fair argument. If you truly like minimalism and it gives you aesthetic pleasure then that is your choice.

I think people like to go into cathedrals, museums, travel around Europe, and experience the old world because it resonates with them spiritually and emotionally. I live in my own version of beauty, which is rare today, but I think far more people would prefer to live how I do than the current paradigm. I view minimalism as shorthand for “cheap” that society has foisted upon us in order to cut costs. Everything expensive in terms of time or money that I invest in, I do because of the value it provides me

vladms3• 1 year ago

Just curious, are you really calm on the long term in a minimalist decor? I get that when you look at it at first you don't get assaulted by input (as it is minimalist), but can you keep an inner peace for long because of the decor?

For me, in such a decorated place, I get a calming effect on the longer term by just studying the details, which makes my mind not focus on your every day worries (or what stupid thing happens somewhere in the world) but rather on other questions/observations. Then, when I get back to every day worries I can see that maybe my worries were exaggerated, misplaced.

atomicthumbs• 1 year ago

it goes against everything we as humans appreciate. Classical style, Greek columns, open spaces, ornate decoration.

Speak for yourself.

musikele• 1 year ago

The director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, wrote a book about Pompeii (I don't know if it was translated to English, since I read it in Italian), and it described why rich people decorated their homes this way. Of course these paintings served to rich homeowners to show off their power, but also to have some fun during dinners. For example, everybody in ancient Rome knew the mith of <name_your_favourite_roman_god>. So, when entering a room with a painting of such god on the wall, after a couple of glasses with their friends, they'd start arguing, "I understood why Jupiter did this and that..." or, sometimes, they painted the mith with something odd just to have fun. It was a conversation starter, a way to be ironic of life and with friends, and a way to enjoy their lives.

mr_toad• 1 year ago

Europeans liked to depict the same scenes over and over. There must have been hundreds of versions of “The Adoration of the Magi” done over the centuries.

jajko• 1 year ago

You mean actual old home say in Italy or Greece or some cheap 'me-too' mcmansion copies in US?

If that works for you thats fine, but to many Europeans this looks very cheap and bland copy, like building a stone medieval castle in suburban US. Having 'greek columns' anywhere apart where they were built 2000 years ago is tasteless to me for example.

Also there is huge room between ornate and minimalist, where most people fall re design taste. I'd say minimalist is for folks who derive their happiness from other aspects of their lives compared to real estate, which is generally a good approach regardless.

But thats us Europeans, we like originality and appreciate and respect utmostly where it came from, be it food or culture.

trgn• 1 year ago

Having 'greek columns' anywhere apart where they were built 2000 years ago is tasteless to me

so all the revivals are tacky? e.g. all buildings of importance before 1920 in american and european cities are tacky?

sureIy• 1 year ago

As you said, maintaining that costs more than a coat of white paint every 5 years.

I envy the artists who have a sense of style in their living spaces, but also I gradually emptied my childhood room as I grew up as I could not stand the clutter — or jut the cleaning part.

Then you have to consider that the majority of people have absolutely no taste and a minimal home is their best bet at tasteful living spaces. The second choice would probably be green walls and red couches.

sapphicsnail2• 1 year ago

Just want to add that there is no one thing that is Greek Paganism or Christianity. Any belief system of sufficient age is incredibly diverse and I'd be wary of people online making big generalizing statements about them.

There's actually an epic called the Dionysiaca, about Dionysius, that's longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined. I think there's still only one English translation of it but it's pretty interesting. It has a story of Dionysius being reborn that might be related to this.

wdutch• 1 year ago

Plug for my favourite podcast Literature and History which has convered this topic: https://literatureandhistory.com/episode-096-the-last-pagan-...

intrasight• 1 year ago

Thank you!

jpster• 1 year ago

Thanks! You might like the In Our Time podcasts from the BBC.

Telemakhos2• 1 year ago

You left out the best part: the author of the Dionysiaca, Nonnus of Panopolis, also wrote an abridgment of the Gospel of John.

alsetmusic• 1 year ago

I’ve been a student of early christianity (first three centuries) for just over a year. The wiki entry on Nonnus is scant. Can you please recommend quality literature to learn more about the Metabole? It’s not clear to me the purpose of the text.

mistrial93• 1 year ago

the First Council of Nicaea would like a word with you?

brendoelfrendo• 1 year ago

The First Council of Nicaea spoke for some of the Church at the time, and became the prevailing position of most Christian churches, but it's not a monopoly. Most obviously, non-trinitarian Christian churches have popped up sporadically since then, and several exist today.

thenewwazoo• 1 year ago

I feel like https://xkcd.com/927/ applies

dr_dshiv2• 1 year ago

“Let us not forget, however, that for the Roman religion, conceived as a rigid state religion, the unbridled nature of a cult like that of Dionysus was considered dangerous. Arriving from Campania, the Dionysian cult spread rapidly to Rome, where the famous scandal of the Bacchanalia broke out and the devotees were deemed dangerous for the stability of the res publica itself.

In 186 BC a famous senatus consultum prohibited the cult of the god and prosecuted transgressors. Numerous places of worship were destroyed and even death sentences followed. In Pompeii, a sanctuary dedicated to the god and dating back to the middle of the third century BC remained in operation until the end of the city, in 79 AD and Pompeii always showed a fervent and growing devotion to the mysterious manifestations of the god.”

https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca...

And more from Wikipedia on the cult and its violent suppression—nearly 7000 killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia

techload• 1 year ago

An interesting account of these related persecutions, etc.: LETTER TO A BRAZILIAN MASON UNEXPURGATED: http://www.themasonictrowel.com/ebooks/freemasonry/eb0158.pd...

mistrial93• 1 year ago

Blavatsky? Incarnate God? this might be an attempt to smear masonry.. what giant quasi-government institution in Brazil might have interest in doing that?

ourmandave• 1 year ago

Shout out to the Maenads, the OG Girls Gone Wild.

Fun times, except they'd occasionally rip dudes limb from limb along with the local fauna.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScBPfrSl6Q

doodlebugging2• 1 year ago

I'm gonna let all of y'all discuss the religions and cults. I'll go off topic for a bit.

I have to put in a plug for all the craftsmen (and women?) who did the tile inlay work on those floors. I've seen lots of pictures of mosaic floors and I am always impressed by the skills of the artists who created those designs and how they were able to use colored bits of rock to craft intricate portraits that have lasted millenia.

In the last photo of the series you see one of my favorites. The section between columns depicting fish in the four corners with the circular design using hexagonal symmetry shows how they were able to combine elements with entirely different symmetries and the fish, which were mirrored corner to corner, and do it coherently. I would love to see a photo of the individual tile work. The only thing that drives me nuts about that element is the placement of the two columns. The artist should've scaled the design to fit between the columns so that the column on the right overlaps the outside black boundary the same as the left column.

I'm thinking that they used a bottom-up building technique where the walls are established and then the floors are laid first and then after the walls are complete they add a roof so that the column placement comes into play later in the building process. This means that the motif is likely complete under those columns instead of the floor being tiled up to the columns.

The section between the columns to the left of the fishes is a really nice intricate design incorporating small equilateral triangles with a central strip that appears to have some Greek lettering, perhaps the letters phi or psi. I can't make it out.

Does anyone have an idea about the methods and materials used for roof construction? I suspect that timbers were used as you can see at the tops of the walls how they would've been spaced by the layout of openings that I think would've held the ends of large timber beams just above the dark painted columns on the wall. The stone columns appear to line up with the nooks so that one can picture something akin to a coffered ceiling design where the timbers, since they are oriented with their widest sides horizontally instead of the stronger vertical orientation, needed the column support at intervals to prevent collapse.

I also can appreciate the level of detail work that went into the motif that used the squares cut by a small black diagonal on a 45 degree angle so that the design is a combination of squares and right triangles. The thin diagonals are made using individual black tiles and the triangles are infilled with similar sized white tiles. It's a really nice geometric design that would've been easy to lay out and execute if the materials were consistently cut. I can imagine the materials list that the tile crew would get and how specific the designer would be about tile dimensions.

I've done a bit of tile work in the houses that we've owned and tried to make each special. Tiling is a lot like needlepoint in that you are laying things out on a precise grid and everything in the design has a specific location and orientation and the sizing of elements really is important to avoid visual artifacts that will draw the eye of someone like myself whose eyes are magnetically drawn to imperfections. I see all the defects all the time. That character defect made me a nice career doing QC work though I know that some people hated to discover that I was the one checking their work. I get it. It's hard being me sometimes and harder to work with me most times.

krunck• 1 year ago

The craftsmanship is indeed amazing. But, where did the central floor tiles go? Did they decompose? Stolen?

chrononaut• 1 year ago

Given that the tiles along parts of the perimeter are intact, I imagine the tiles might've shattered in many small pieces when the roof collapsed during the eruption, and they didn't want to just leave them there during the excavation

doodlebugging2• 1 year ago

I wondered about that myself and decided that they were probably removed by those doing the excavation for conservation purposes. If you refer to the 11th photo where you are looking diagonally across the room toward the corner you can see evidence in the thin accent tiles that the collapse of the columns along the right wall and left of the corner damaged the floor. Several of those accent tiles are broken as if something long crushed them as it landed. It is especially noticeable in the lower center foreground where there are several crushed tiles.

They have taken care to place their post jacks on a surface elevated above the original floor level to avoid disturbing the rest of the layout.

neuroelectron• 1 year ago

Better article with photos: https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-news/news-bloody-ritual-...

Edit: link fixed

PretzelPirate• 1 year ago

I think you pasted the wrong link. Your link is about a car.

zaat• 1 year ago

One can still hold that it's a better link, it's a matter of preference. Anyways, if you scroll the original article to the very end it does contain an impressive set of photos. It is beautiful.

velcrovan• 1 year ago

Maybe they just think theirs is an objectively better article, even though their topics differ. And that it also has photos.

AStonesThrow5• 1 year ago

Just stumbled upon an interesting episode in Roman Republic history: The Social War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_(91%E2%80%9387_BC)

Pompeii and Herculaneum are identified as “having joined insurgents” (see color coded map)!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii#The_Roman_period

Fewer than 180 years before the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii and Campania had been subjugated by Republican armies after their rebellious insurrection.

Here, have a erudite post-punk music video (1986) about the eruption: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&si=kNoAj2scal8...

Discovery of fresco portraying Dionysian mysteries at Pompeii

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