The tympanum of the north alcove in cubiculum 11 at Oplontis Villa A provides one of the few representations of city walls known from Roman antiquity. Today the fresco is nearly illegible due to significant paint losses since its discovery. As a result, previous publications reproduce discrepant drawings derived from the surviving imagery and from sketches made at the time of excavation. In 2008, Grete Stefani of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei rediscovered two black-and-white photographs of the fresco taken shortly after its excavation in 1967. The images reveal lost details and put to rest some of the discrepancies found in the published drawings.
Expanded and revised version of a previously published paper.
Open Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/fulcrum.tb09j7416
