Museo delle Terme di Traiano Opens in Rome with Largest Surviving Roman Wall Mosaic

Key facts

• The Museo delle Terme di Traiano opened in Rome in a 230-foot (70-meter) underground gallery on the Oppian Hill, across from the Colosseum.
• The gallery was discovered during excavations between 1997 and 1999 beneath the Baths of Trajan, inaugurated in 109 CE.
• The museum displays the largest surviving wall mosaic in the Roman world, on two sides of a hall about 10 by 15 meters (33 by 49 feet) and 12 meters (39 feet) tall.
• The mosaic survives at about 20% and is located roughly nine meters (29 feet) below the modern walkway.
• The mosaic features illusionistic architecture, Dionysian symbols, imitation statues like a centaur, and full-color portraits; two faces inspired the name “Mosaic of the Muse and the Philosopher.”
• The room likely served as an imperial reception room, an oecus, dating after the Great Fire of Nero in 64 CE to the end of Domitian’s reign in 96 CE.
• A large fresco fragment shows a painted city in bird’s-eye view with walls, a gateway, an Odeon, a temple, a portico, residential buildings, and a fortified harbor; it may depict an imaginary city, a Near Eastern city, or Londinium.
• Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri spoke at the inaugural press conference, emphasizing the city’s capacity to reveal its past.