The famed brothel of Pompeii, one of the ancient city's main tourist attractions, is reopening after much-needed restoration .

Lovers of the ancient and naughty have been forced to wait a year, while the premises were revamped, to enjoy the brothel's famously explicit pictures .

They'll get their fresh peeks at the notorious erotica when the restored building is unveiled on Thursday .

The wall paintings, which depict a wide variety of sexual acts and positions, are one of the biggest draws for the estimated one million visitors Pompeii attracts each year .

The so-called Lupanare - from the Latin word 'lupa' (wolf), a codeword for prostitute - is located in the port area of the city, which was buried by an eruption of the nearby volcano Mt Vesuvius in 49 AD .

"It's the only purpose-built brothel in Pompeii," said Pompeii's Archeological Superintendent Pietro Giovanni Guzzi. Experts say there were small cat-houses above shops all over the city but the Lupanare was a mecca of no-holds-barred prostitution and one of the favourite destinations of visitors even in ancient times .

Scions of patrician families who had their villas in luxury resorts across the bay (now part of Naples) poured into Pompeii's Lupanare to slum it and enjoy some uncomplicated, no-nonsense sex .

The rooms in the Lupanare are small cubicles with a ledge along one side that was in ancient times covered with a mattress .

The erotic pictures, painted in a rough hand, are mostly found over the entrances to the rooms and are believed to have advertised the sort of act the room's sex workers specialised in .

The second floor is thought to have contained wooden beds that were burned in Vesuvius's hot ashes Scrawled throughout the two-storey building are graffiti singing the joys of sex and praising the abilities of some of the prostitutes who worked there .