The 2,000-Year-Old ‘Perfume Garden’ in the Ancient City of Pompeii Has Been Restored to Its Former Glory
The small garden now features thousands of roses, violets, cherry trees and vines. Experts think a perfumer may have once used the plants to experiment with new scents
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In the 1950s, botanist Wilhelmina Jashemski identified traces of pollen, spores and plant fossils in the ancient city of Pompeii. The discovery suggested that the site had once been a lush, cultivated garden.
Now, that garden has been restored to its former glory, complete with thousands of roses, ruscus plants, violets, cherry trees and vines, according to a statement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
“Pompeii was full of gardens, and they are crucial to understanding the city,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the park, tells the London Times’ Tom Kington.
Fun fact: The gardens of Pompeii
Archaeologists have found traces of hundreds of orchards and gardens within the bounds of the ancient city.When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., it covered Pompeii in ash and rock. Some 2,000 residents died, and their homes and streets were preserved beneath the debris. Archaeologists have been excavating the city ever since its discovery in the 16th century.
The restored garden is known as the Garden of Hercules, named for a statue of the mythological hero. Archaeologists think it was part of a perfumery dating to the third century B.C.E. During previous excavations, researchers discovered small glass and terracotta containers at the site, which may have been used to bottle ointments made with floral essences.
Zuchtriegel says in the statement that experts see the greenery of Pompeii as an important part of the archaeological site. After all, cultivation was central to life in the ancient city. As Anna Maria Ciarallo, former director of Pompeii’s applied research laboratory, told Wanted in Rome in 2005, the city once contained more than 400 orchards and vegetable gardens, as evidenced by preserved furrows, roots and seeds.
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In the Garden of Hercules, researchers discovered remains of trellises and earthen holes left by olive trees. They also found evidence of an irrigation system, which allowed enslaved laborers to pour water through a hole in the wall from outside the garden. The water would then flow through channels surrounding planting beds. Large clay pots, or dolia, embedded within the irrigation channels collected and stored water for later use.
“If a gardener needed to give extra water to a plant, they could take it from a dolia,” garden historian Maurizio Bartolini, who worked on the restoration, tells the London Times. Bartolini thinks the perfumer who owned the Garden of Hercules might have used the flowers to experiment with new scents.
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Because the garden is less than 1,000 square feet, it’s “possibly not large enough for full-scale production,” Bartolini explains to the publication. “You would need 2,000 roses to create [one teaspoon] of perfume.” The final product also wouldn’t have lasted long. “The scent would fade fast,” he adds. “You needed to wear it within a week.”
The entrance to the Garden of Hercules is inscribed with a Latin phrase, “Cras Credo,” which translates to “tomorrow we will have credit,” according to ANSA.
The garden was not only a place of work: It contained a small temple and a shady alcove, where people may have eaten. “This was a productive place but also really beautiful,” Zuchtriegel tells the London Times.
