A Nazi stole an erotic mosaic from Pompeii... now it's finally back in its original location.

A Nazi captain during World War II stole a curious erotic mosaic from Pompeii. Now, after so many years, it has finally been returned to the place from which it was stolen.

The mosaic in question shows a man reclining on a couch, being attended to by a scantily clad woman, and is thought to have decorated the floor of a bedroom in a Roman villa, according to the Pompeii Archaeological Park. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD , Pompeii's buildings, its inhabitants, and this mosaic were buried under layers of ash.

The coating paradoxically preserved the city for more than 1,600 years , so despite dating between the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, it still retains its bright colors and all its pieces are intact, CNN notes.

Many areas of Pompeii had already been discovered during World War II . The mosaic was stolen by a Wehrmacht captain overseeing Germany's military supply chain in Italy during the war. He later gave it to an anonymous German citizen whose heirs contacted the Italian police, asking how they could return it.

The mosaic was stolen by a Wehrmacht captain overseeing Germany's military supply chain in Italy.

A specialized unit of the Italian police, charged with protecting the country's cultural heritage, then investigated the mosaic's provenance, tentatively tracing it to the area destroyed by Mount Vesuvius , although some information about its discovery was lacking.

“Every stolen piece that returns is a wound that heals, and we express our gratitude to the Protection Unit for their work. The wound lies not so much in the material value of the work, but in its historical value; a value that is seriously affected by the illicit trafficking of antiquities,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park , in a statement.

"We don't know its exact provenance and we probably never will," he said, though he added that the park will conduct further tests to reconstruct the mosaic's history as much as possible. It will be temporarily displayed in a Pompeii museum for public viewing.

This is far from the first time that erotic art has been discovered in Pompeii. In October 2024, archaeologists discovered a small house filled with elaborate, and sometimes daring, frescoes; another house, also covered in risqué frescoes, reopened to the public in January 2023 after a 20-year closure; and in 2018, another fresco was discovered depicting an erotic scene from the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan.

A Nazi captain during World War II stole a curious erotic mosaic from Pompeii. Now, after so many years, it has finally been returned to the place from which it was stolen.