2,000-Year-Old Love Note Found on Pompeii Wall

A love note scratched into a wall 2,000 years ago is finally being read again, thanks to technology that can see what human eyes cannot.

Her name was Erato, and she walked through ancient Pompeii's theater district with something on her mind. When she reached a long passageway covered in graffiti, she carved her feelings into the plaster: "Erato amat," meaning "Erato loves." Who she loved remains a mystery lost to time.

Researchers discovered Erato's message using Reflectance Transformation Imaging, a technique that combines multiple photos taken under different lighting. The technology revealed 79 inscriptions that had faded too much for archaeologists to read over the past two centuries.

"This project highlights urban communication, especially from sections of the population that do not usually appear in literature or official inscriptions," says Marie-Adeline Le Guennec, a historian leading the Corridor Rumors project. She and her team are creating an online tool that will let anyone examine these ancient messages up close.

The 90-foot passageway connected two theaters and served as a gathering spot where people chatted, waited, and left their mark. Over 300 inscriptions cover the wall, including rushed love notes ("I'm in a hurry; take care, my Sava, make sure you love me!") and heartfelt wishes from an enslaved woman named Methe who wrote about loving someone named Cresto.

The newly discovered graffiti also includes drawings of gladiators in combat, one showing a fighter mid-movement as if captured by a spectator's eye. Another sketch might depict a rare female gladiator, which would make it one of the only visual references to women fighters from ancient Rome.

Why This Inspires

This wall tells us that ordinary people 2,000 years ago felt the same rush of emotions we do today. They wanted to declare their love publicly, share a joke with strangers, or simply leave proof they existed.

Women like Erato and Methe could read and write, participating in public life in ways that ancient literature rarely recorded. Their words survived because Mount Vesuvius's eruption in 79 C.E. buried Pompeii in ash, accidentally preserving these everyday moments.

Archaeologists have found over 11,000 inscriptions throughout Pompeii, creating a time capsule of jokes, poems, political commentary, and laundry lists. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, sees technology as the bridge connecting us to these lives. "Technology is the key that is shedding new light on the ancient world," he says.

The digital tool debuts this year and will eventually be available to everyone who wants to explore what ancient Romans wrote when they thought no one important was watching.

Some messages feel timeless, like Erato's unfinished declaration of love reaching across two millennia to remind us that the need to share our hearts never goes out of style.