Pompeii ‘Perfume Garden’ Restored to Its Former Glory

The 2,000 year old walled garden now features thousands of roses, violets, cherry trees and vines. Experts think a perfumer may have once used the plants to experiment with scents.

The Hercules Garden | Credit: Archaeological Park of Pompeii

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 before it was buried in ash when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. “Pompeii was full of gardens, and they are crucial to understanding the city,” park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel told The Times.

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, reports Smithsonian Magazine.

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 labourers 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.

Clay pot known as a dolia | Credit: Archaeological Park of Pompeii

“If a gardener needed to give extra water to a plant, they could take it from a dolia,” says garden historian Maurizio Bartolini, who worked on the restoration. Bartolini thinks the perfumer who owned the Garden of Hercules might have used the flowers to experiment with new scents.

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,” says Zuchtriegel.

Approximately 4 million people visit the Pompeii archaeological site each year and, to stop it becoming overwhelmed, the park is now restricting visitor numbers to a maximum of 20,000 per day.

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New Discovery Reveals The Spectacular Luxury of Pompeii: After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for two millennia, a "once-in-a-century" find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.