The House of the Pygmies takes its name from an exceptional Nilotic decoration preserved in one of its rooms.
The large frieze depicts a landscape inspired by Egypt and the banks of the Nile, inhabited by figures traditionally identified as pygmies or dwarfs. Sacred buildings, boats, exotic animals and numerous scenes of everyday activity appear around them.
The figures are shown fishing, sailing, carrying goods, making offerings at small shrines and confronting animals such as crocodiles and hippopotamuses. The scene should not be read as a realistic view of Egypt, but as an imaginative and exotic reconstruction shaped by Roman taste.
The decoration originally extended across several walls, immersing the room in a continuous Nilotic landscape. A window also created a visual connection between this small room and the garden, linking the painted landscape with the real one outside.
The House of the Pygmies provides particularly significant evidence for the popularity of Egyptian themes in first-century AD Pompeii. Similar motifs appear in the Praedia of Julia Felix, the House of the Ephebe and other houses in the city.
The decorative schemes of the domus have undergone major conservation work as part of the Great Pompeii Project.
