Cupboard in Pompeii Yields Necklace of 24 Charms Left Behind in Flight From Vesuvius

POMPEII, ITALY — The Archaeological Park of Pompeii announced on Oct. 29, 2026, that excavations at a house on Via dell'Abbondanza, one of the city's principal streets, have turned up a wooden cupboard's worth of personal belongings, according to a report from Unknown Country. The cupboard itself was reconstructed from evidence, and its contents have lain undisturbed since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Chief among the finds is a necklace of at least 24 miniature objects made of bone, glass paste, faience and rock crystal. The charms reportedly depict the Egyptian protective deity Bes and the Roman god Mercury, along with tiny hands, feet, pine cones and bunches of grapes.

The park says the necklace belongs to a Roman tradition known as crepundia, protective charms commonly given to children. The report adds that they could also serve as rattles, allowing caregivers to follow a child's movements by ear. Such necklaces were sometimes kept into adulthood as reminders of childhood, the park's researchers explain, and might have preserved a link to distant families in a mobile society. Whether this one served that purpose is described as unknown.

The cupboard also held 38 bronze coins, cosmetic implements, a glass container for perfumes or ointments, household vessels, lead weights possibly tied to trade, and an incense burner. Archaeologists have not established that the burner was used for worship or magic.

Inscriptions tentatively link the house to a man named Cornelius Maximus, though researchers cannot say who owned the cupboard. The coins and keepsakes left behind suggest, according to the report, that the occupants had little chance to retrieve them. Their fate remains uncertain.

The article is careful to note that the find is evidence of protective beliefs, not of any supernatural protection having occurred.