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Back in business after centuries: Roman fast food restaurant recently unearthed at Pompeii to open to public soon

WION Web Team
NEW DELHIUpdated: Aug 09, 2021, 06:37 PM IST

A view shows the archeological site of Pompeii  Photograph:(AFP)

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As per Telegraph, the ancient diner offered its Roman customers culinary delights including snails, duck, pig, goat and fish

This business is back after 20 centuries.

A 2,000-years-old fast food restaurant that has recently been unearthed in Pompeii is all set to open to the public on August 12.

As per Telegraph, the ancient diner offered its Roman customers culinary delights including snails, duck, pig, goat and fish.

Traces of these were found in terracotta pots that had been buried in volcanic ash since A.D. 79. 

Massimo Osanna, director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, said the discovery of the pots gave “extraordinary insight,” into the Roman diet.

Even after archaeologists have excavated more than 80 other similar eateries, this one is the 'best preserved'.

The eatery is an ancient version of Italy’s modern day “tavola calda”, which is a cheap restaurant that serves ready to eat meals and drinks.

Inside the restaurant, one can find a fresco of a sea nymph riding a horse, which adorns a counter full of holes where steaming pots of food would have been displayed. 

Other frescoes depict some of the meat that might have been on offers, such as a large rooster and a pair of ducks.

Lewd graffiti, which is aimed at insulting the establishment’s owner, is scratched into black paint above a fresco of a chained dog.

“Nicia cinaede cacator,” it reads. 

As per archaeologists, this was a homophobic insult referencing a teenage boy who sleeps with older men, known as a catamite. 

It was probably left by “a prankster who sought to poke fun at the owner,” the park wrote in a statement.