'Graffiti' comes from the Italian for 'a scribbling'

Archaeologists discovered over 11,000 examples of graffiti in ancient Pompeii

Residents drew various figures and announcements on homes, temples, and walls, much of it preserved by volcanic ash. While some were clearly intended to be artistic, scholars have noted that the ancient graffiti has more in common with social media than with the tags and murals we associate today with the art form.

A collection of ancient graffiti from Pompeii, Herculaneum

From cavemen to marker-wielding children, humans have always wanted to leave their mark. Read some of the graffiti left by ancient Romans here. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum feature exquisite levels of preservation due to the nature of their demise. Viewers can see the surviving graffiti by clicking through the site's featured collections, which include topics such as poetry and love.

Explore a database of ancient graffiti

Take a look at thousands of pieces of graffiti from the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, including name tags, crude jokes, and crude drawings. The database, maintained by classical scholars, allows you to explore maps of the cities and images of the original inscriptions.

A reading of ancient Rome's best graffiti

Graffiti has been surprisingly common throughout history, and even the grandeur of ancient Rome's walls wasn't spared. This clever and funny video reads through some of the more notable messages relayed via graffiti in ancient Rome, from tidbits of wisdom like "A small problem gets larger if you ignore it" to more unsavory observations of lovers, friends, and enemies.

Ancient Romans sometimes lobbed insults through graffiti

Graffiti was used to communicate ideas, offer advice, and, not unlike the internet, talk some trash. That was especially true with tourists, who sometimes scrawled messages on the pyramids, including one person who complained, "I can not read the hierogylphics." In response, someone replied, "Why do you care that you can not read the hieroglyphics? I do not understand your concern."

Graffiti's lexicon includes slang for methods and aspirations

Quickly covering an area with graffiti, often fast tags and throwies, is called "bombing," a word that's intended to evoke images of an aerial raid. "Heaven" is a double entendre: It's a very high spot, both desirable and potentially fatal.

Graffiti has its own visual language, including simple 'tags,' large block letters, and complex 'pieces.'

Graffiti became an integral part of hip-hop culture

The visual art form began taking off in New York alongside the music of hip-hop. Both were postmodern forms of art that repurposed preexisting materials. For graffiti, that was by using the city as canvas. For rap, that was through sampling. This retrospective not only shows how the two forms intersected, but also how the public perception of both changed over time.

In 1974, Norman Mailer touted graffiti as an intellectual art form

The Pulitzer Prize winner explored the style in his 1974 Esquire essay, "The Faith of Graffiti," before expanding on it in a book with 81 photos by Jon Naar. In it, he traces the form back to its ancient roots and compares graffiti writers to Renaissance painters.

Graffiti exists in a legal gray area

"Street art" has become a major seller in the art world, yet many states still consider graffiti to be illegal vandalism. Copyright law complicates the situation further, offering protections for "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression," even if they've been created illegally.

As graffiti grew more popular, New York worked to stop it

In 1972, the NYPD made over 1,500 graffiti-related arrests. By 1973, the city was annually spending $10M to remove and limit graffiti. That same year, a poll conducted by an anti-graffiti task force found that the "vast majority" of residents did not consider graffiti to be art.

A graffiti artist breaks down the fundamentals of the form

Graffiti is more than just tagging a name. Legendary street artist Carlos Mare, also known as Mare 139, breaks down how to paint several of the form's popular styles and motifs, from quickly drawn throwies to intricately planned masterpieces.

Basquiat helped move graffiti from the streets to the galleries

He took graffiti's aesthetics—cryptic slogans, bold colors, and repurposed iconography—and placed them on his canvases, helping to create what some called "post graffiti." These short documentaries, produced in 1982 and 1983, capture the nascent movement as it emerged in the mainstream art world.

In the '70s, graffiti moved to subway cars

Unlike static walls, the silver cars moved throughout the city, like a canvas in perpetual motion. That made them highly desired by graffiti artists, especially because tagging them was considerably more difficult and, in turn, more impressive than a simple tag in an alley.

A fresco from ancient Pompeii featured an 'ancestor of modern pizza'

A team of archaeologists discovered a fresco from 79 CE featuring what appears to be a proto-pizza: a pita topped with fruit, spices, and other toppings. One archaeologist in the PBS documentary below calls it an "ancestor of modern pizza in the sense that it's a very simple, poor kind of food."

Philadelphia's Cornbread claims to be the first modern graffiti artist

Darryl McCray began writing his nickname, "Cornbread," across his hometown of Philadelphia in the 1960s. That style was a way of posting a personalized signature across neighborhoods and would become known as "tagging." In time, that style spread to New York, where it took off among other young people.

Keith Haring was inspired by graffiti's accessibility

The visual artist—known for his vibrant pop art—loved how graffiti was a democratic form, available to everyday people who wouldn't otherwise visit museums or galleries. He began drawing chalk murals in New York subway stations, remarking that it was an ideal venue because it attracted a diverse audience.

One graffiti artist turned a train tunnel into his gallery

Chris Pape, also known as Freedom, began exploring a tunnel under Manhattan's Riverside Park when he was a kid. As he grew more involved with graffiti, he turned its walls into a massive art project, one that reflected both the history of graffiti and the people who made the tunnel their home.

TAKI 183 was a teenager whose graffiti drew widespread attention

Inspired by graffiti he saw throughout the city—including some tags he saw as early as 1964—the 16-year-old began tagging surfaces with "TAKI 183," a reference to a Greek nickname for Demetrius and his street (183rd) in Washington Heights. After a 1971 New York Times profile, his tag—and graffiti culture in New York—exploded.

Cities and parks often work to prevent graffiti

Although some call it art, many see it as an eyesore and try to prevent it through prohibitive designs, lighting, and vandal-proofed coatings that make spray paint easier to remove. This guide from the Project for Public Spaces outlines some of those strategies and more.

A popular tag in World War II announced 'Kilroy was here'

The graffito appeared seemingly everywhere throughout the 1940s and followed a similar pattern: A man with an oversized nose peering over a ledge, with the phrase written below it. Scholars believe it was an American form of similar tags that appeared in Australia and England, making "Kilroy" a meme long before the word had entered the lexicon.

'Tattoo' comes from a Polynesian word that means 'to strike'

“Tatatau” roughly translates to “strike,” a reference to the ancient process, which involved tapping ink into the skin with sharpened objects, like the bronze implements used circa 1450 BCE in Egypt, below.

A recently discovered fresco in Pompeii depicts gladiators fighting

Archaeologists uncovered a gladiator combat fresco beneath a shop staircase in Pompeii. Its location suggests it decorated a low-end tavern near the gladiator barracks—possibly a hangout for fighters themselves.

The theory behind public art

Proponents of public art, including graffiti, argue that its free access and visibility breaks down the elitism and financial barriers of galleries and museums, allowing people to interact or ignore the work as they see fit.

The earliest depiction of Jesus' crucifixion

The Alexamenos Graffito is widely considered the oldest surviving image of the crucifixion. It was scratched into a plaster wall near Rome's Palatine Hill, probably around 200 CE. It is not devotional art—it shows a donkey-headed figure on a cross alongside the Greek inscription "Alexamenos worships his god," apparently drawn by a student mocking a classmate's Christian faith. No devotional depiction of the crucifixion would be made until the sixth century.

Pizza is believed to have been invented in Naples

Flatbreads were eaten by ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, but historians trace pizza—flatbread with toppings, including present-day staples like tomatoes, cheese, garlic, oregano, and oil—back to 18th-century Naples, where the food was loved by its working poor, who appreciated a cheap, tasty meal. Naples formally became a part of Italy in 1861.

The documentary 'Style Wars' captured graffiti at its height

The film explored the tension between graffiti's innovation and its illegality, following some of its most popular artists, such as Mare 139 and Futura, as well as its detractors, including Mayor Ed Koch. The documentary first appeared on PBS in 1983, introducing the movement to a national audience. You can watch it in its entirety below.

After the death of jazz legend Charlie Parker, Beat Generation poet and artist Ted Joans adorned New York's walls with some of its earliest graffiti that read 'Bird lives!'

A 101 on Pompeii

Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 CE preserved an entire Roman city in ash, leaving future archaeologists an unprecedented gift: the most complete glimpse to date into the daily life of ancient Romans. The encyclopedia entry, originally written by one of the site’s leading archaeological scholars, is a one-stop shop for all things Pompeii, including what several generations of archaeologists have discovered over centuries of excavation.

Banksy turned graffiti into high art

The anonymous artist is renowned for his puckish, often stenciled street art. He's also known for the eye-popping sales those works command once they're up for auction. This podcast dives into the history of the singular artist, exploring how a British graffiti artist became a cultural icon.

'The grotesque' describes a feature of Gothic literature

The term harkens back to decorative aspects of Gothic architecture, including mythical creatures like gargoyles. In literature, the grotesque describes similarly monstrous characters and situations.

Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were likely colorful, not white

Archaeologists stumbling upon statues from ancient Greece often found weathered creatures, their faces and figures marred by age and conflict. But evidence of polychromy—painting sculptures with color—has continued to mount.

Before it was used to describe the blend of punk and metal from Seattle, 'grunge' was used as an insult.

New York mayor Ed Koch railed against graffiti in the '70s and '80s

Koch was outspoken in his hatred of the form and, during his three terms, launched an anti-graffiti campaign with the help of several New York celebrities. This 1984 BBC report documents some of the scorn graffiti artists had attracted, including from Grace Glueck, the New York Times' art critic, who said, "I don't consider it an art form on canvas at all."

Explore the collection of vivid frescoes Pompeii left behind

This gallery showcases remarkably preserved frescoes depicting food, daily life, landscapes, and myth. Tools abandoned during the eruption reveal how ancient artists worked, offering insight into Pompeii’s visual culture before Vesuvius buried the city in ash.

The word 'influenza' comes from a 15th-century Italian belief in the stars

In Renaissance Italy, epidemics were thought to result from the influence of natural disasters or celestial bodies. The illness was named "influenza", meaning “influence” in Italian.

The art and architecture of the devastated Pompeii

Long buried under feet of ash, the city of Pompeii's discovery millennia later sparked a world of imagination and tragedy. See a collection of paintings, buildings, and photographs from the city all in one easy-to-browse gallery.

Gutai, a Japanese form of performance art, used the body as a canvas, anticipating the Westernized version of the art form by several decades.

View photos of classic New York graffiti

Henry Chalfant was one of the foremost documentarians of early graffiti and hip-hop culture, photographing some of the era's most iconic pieces and playing a part in the genre-defining "Style Wars" film. This interview with him is accompanied by some of his photos from an exhibit at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, showcasing the art form as it came into its own.

Pompeii’s ruins expose the brutal realities of Rome’s sex trade

Drawing on graffiti, slave collars, brothel art, and the story of “Eutychis, a Greek lass with sweet ways,” this piece reconstructs the violent, coercive world of Pompeii’s enslaved prostitutes—and how their owners controlled, renamed, and exploited them.

How Scrabble got its name

Alfred Butts, a newly unemployed architect during the Great Depression, created Scrabble. But the game was named by James Brunot, who used the word to describe the most common action its players take part in: digging frantically.

The renaissance in the ancient art of calligraphy

The ancient craft of calligraphy is experiencing a renaissance, with hundreds of societies devoted to the practice of fancy penmanship. The movement consists generally of two camps: people who use "pointed pen" (or fine line work) and those who deploy the "broad nib" (large, broad letters). Disruptive members are attempting to bridge the divide.

Pompeii's buried secrets are still being revealed

Despite digging for decades, archaeologists are still uncovering new insights into life before the blast that buried Pompeii. Follow a journalist's footsteps as they explore the ruins of Pompeii in this article. The ruins were discovered in the 1700s, and formal excavations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries revealed temples, mansions, and entire streets, while a third of the city remains to be excavated.

Read the New York Times profile of TAKI 183

The 1971 article about the young graffiti artist and his many acolytes exposed the burgeoning subculture to a large audience and also detailed the effort to clean the work from the city's walls. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The word 'mortgage' comes from medieval French, meaning 'death contract.'

Inflation was a word before deflation was

The word inflation has Latin roots and technically means an influx of air, first appearing in the English language in the 1890s to describe bike tires. Deflation's first known mention in an economic text was in 1919.

The scientific name for northern lights came from two Greco-Roman gods

Although cave paintings may have depicted them millennia earlier, one of the oldest known references to auroras is a Babylonian cuneiform tablet from about 600 BCE. In 1619, Galileo Galilei named the phenomenon in the northern hemisphere "aurora borealis" after the Roman goddess of dawn—Aurora—and the Greek god of the north wind—Boreas.

The word 'restaurant' comes from the Latin for 'restore'

Many believe the word came into use thanks to Boulanger, an 18th-century Parisian soup vendor. According to legend, his shop claimed it served "bouillons restaurants," or "restorative broths."

Archaeologists decode the first known sentence in what may be the oldest written alphabet

This five-minute video details the accidental discovery and subsequent decoding of the first known sentence in what's believed to be the oldest written alphabet. The Canaanite sentence was found on a Bronze Age hair comb unearthed in Tel Lachish, a city of the ancient Biblical Kingdom of Judah, during a dig focused on excavating the kingdom's first Iron Age city. The Canaanite language developed sometime between 3,000 and 1,000 BCE.

The political ideology of fascism originates in Italy

Fascism—first named by Benito Mussolini in 1919—derives from the Italian word fasci, linked to the Roman fasces, symbolizing authoritarian unity. Mussolini adapted this term to represent his autocratic, ultranationalist movement.