In Pompeii, centuries ago, residents engaged in what is now considered street art by carving jokes, insults, love notes, and suggestive drawings on city walls. Recently, an international research team utilized advanced digital imaging techniques to decode nearly illegible graffiti in a narrow corridor connecting two theaters. Their project, named Corridor Whispers, led to the identification of 79 previously unseen inscriptions.
The initiative was spearheaded by Louis Autin and Éloïse Letellier-Taillefer of Sorbonne University in Paris, along with Marie-Adeline Le Guennec from Université du Québec à Montréal. Letellier-Taillefer, an archaeologist focusing on Pompeii’s theaters, observed the abundance of graffiti in the corridor and shared her insights with Le Guennec, who was finalizing her PhD on ancient Roman inns. Intrigued by the similarities between the graffiti in various settings, they decided to delve deeper into the graffiti as a means of popular communication.
Through two rounds of fieldwork in 2022 and 2025, the team reexamined around 300 inscriptions on the corridor walls and unearthed 79 new findings, including a partially lost expression of affection towards an individual named Erato. The graffiti, believed to be a declaration of love, was composed in a colloquial language used by the working-class inhabitants of Pompeii.
Erato, associated with love poetry in Greco-Roman mythology, symbolized “beloved” in ancient Rome and was a common name among liberated individuals or slaves who were often renamed by their owners. The graffiti serves as a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, showcasing scenes of gladiator battles, animal drawings, ships, and the prevalent phallic symbols found throughout the Roman world.
The graffiti also sheds light on the societal dynamics of ancient Pompeii, revealing insights into class and gender roles. While women are depicted in the inscriptions, they are seldom mentioned in posthumous tributes or recognized as authors, indicating limited access to education for women during that era.
The corridor’s drawings, which offer a snapshot of daily life in Pompeii, were revealed using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), a photographic technique that converts shadows into a detailed 3D digital model. The research team conducted their work at night inside the corridor using an RTI acquisition dome provided by Mercurio Imaging.
Giuseppe Scarpati, a Pompeii archaeologist, views the graffiti as a map of the historical city, capturing the essence of daily activities observed by the city’s residents. The corridor, located between the Teatro Grande and the Odeion, was a bustling passageway frequented by various individuals, leaving behind traces of their presence through the inscriptions.
The graffiti in Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, provides valuable insights into the lives of common people from antiquity, filling gaps in our understanding of the ancient world. While artificial intelligence was not utilized in the corridor’s analysis, there is anticipation regarding the potential use of AI in rendering and animating the graffiti in the future.
In June, the Corridor Whispers team intends to launch a digital platform showcasing photogrammetry of the corridor, high-resolution RTI data, and the complete epigraphic record. This platform will allow users to virtually explore the ancient corridor and listen to its 2,000-year-old stories firsthand.
