'Ancestor of pizza' found in still life at Pompeii

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 27 - A suspected ancestor of pizza has been found in a still life at Pompeii, the first evidence that the Ancient Romans ate something similar to the iconic pie believed to have been invented in Naples in the 19th century, sources at the ancient city buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD said Tuesday.
    While they stressed that it couldn't really be pizza because key ingredients like tomatoes and mozzarella had not been brought to Italy or invented yet, they said its shape was remarkably like present-day pizza.
    The food stuff depicted in the 2,000-year-old painting emerged from an initial iconographic analysis of a still-life fresco, which emerged in recent days as part of the new excavations in insula 10 of Regio IX in Pompeii. It was found in the atrium of an aristocratic abode that had a bakery tacked onto it.
    Officials said that what was depicted on the wall of the ancient Pompeian house could be a distant ancestor of the modern dish, which was elevated to World Heritage status in 2017 as the 'traditional art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo'.
    Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said the discovery showed that "Pompeii is a treasure trove that never stops yielding amazing finds" while the director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, pointed out "the remarkable Hellenistic themes in the still life, which can be found in Roman writers like the poets Virgil and Martial and the philosopher Philostratus." He also said that foods in the fresco could be "precisely identified". (ANSA).