Description

The various chronological phases of building are highlighted in masonry with mortar of different colours. In the lower level, about 1.80 metres deep are the different rooms that made up the original residence, mostly with a mosaic floor covered with white tiles and a black frieze.  This is with the exception of the last two floors in signinum opus, ie compound made from "earthenware" mixed with flakes of stone and brick, and most likely used as service rooms.


The five rooms of the house were located around a central open space - a small courtyard - with a rough floor, where there was probably a tank for collecting rainwater. Most of the walls from the Roman era have been lost in the subsequent periods when they were stripped to recover building material for new projects.  In some areas however sections of opus reticulatum are still visible. The building also suffered some changes made to the house at a later date, perhaps at the end of the first century BC when, due to a change in the requirement for space, the size of the main room was reduced


On special wall panels are the partially reconstructed paintings that decorated the domus, and which were found in many fragments during the excavation.   They form a series of paintings of great artistic quality, whose decorative scheme is from the so-called Pompeian Third Style. The whole decorative series represents myths and symbols from the Dionysian cycle, with a megalography depicting the sacred union of Dionysos and Ariadne and the dispute between Eros and Pan.


Inside the display cases are various finds from the survey area - belonging to the Roman and subsequent Medieval and Renaissance periods - as well as other artifacts relevant to the archaeological sites of the territory and from Ocriticum Peligno including fragments of pottery, coins, decorative objects and items of everyday use.