Roman mosaic unearthed

A well-preserved, nearly 2,000-year-old mosaic depicting five frolicking naked men in a grape harvest scene is Rome’s latest stunning find from digs into layers of history under the city’s modern-day surface.

So far, the only ones to come face-to-face with the underground marvel is a team of cave explorers who lowered themselves into a space under the ancient Baths of Trajan, in the bowels of the Oppian Hill, one of the city’s seven ancient hills.

The team of speleologists was brought in to get a full look at the 10-foot-long and 6-foot-high mosaic, which was first spied in 1998 by archeologists who were digging through the subterranean structures of the Baths. They saw only a small detail of it by peeking with a tiny camera through a hole.

Archeologists said Friday that the mosaic is believed to date between AD 64 and AD 100 and is likely part of the wall decoration of what was a large hall beneath the ruins of the hill, part of the sprawling grounds where Emperor Nero built his fabled Golden Palace, or Domus Aurea.

Experts theorized that the mosaic decorated part of the extensive urban structures that were built in the area during the reigns of the seven emperors who came between Nero’s rule (AD 54-68) and Trajan’s (98-117).

From Associated Press