Meggie Macdonald

It looks as though the Summer Dig Season for 2009 is in full swing, having noted the increased number of blog posts on Mary Harrsch’s site, so I felt that now would be a good time to discuss the varying archaeological digs going on throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.

First, there is an ongoing excavation at Pompeii in Italy – something that will likely continue well into the future – of Insula IV, 1 by the American University of Bradford and the University of Oxford.  This dig is structured around the systematic excavation of an entire city block, quite an ambitious undertaking as anyone who has been to the site will agree, and the work is continuous.  This is one of many archaeological digs that brings students and archaeologists together to work at Pompeii on a variety of projects including the conservation of the site of Pompeii itself.

Another project due to begin in August 2009 is a study of the Roman port of Ostia by archaeologists and scholars from the University of Kent, who are planning to study in more detail the remains of the Late Roman site (from approximately AD 378 to the fall of the Western Empire in AD 476).  Due to the nature of preservation at this site, the development of Ostia can be identified through continued archaeological work with a wide variety of project aims.  Ostia was the main port of Rome on the Mediterranean.  It was here that foodstuffs, luxuries and other wares were unloaded from the ocean going merchant ships to be inventoried, stored and shipped to Rome on barges up the Tiber River.

The project at Monte Testaccio near the outskirts of Ancient Rome was something that this writer posted about earlier this year.  This site containes hundreds upon thousands of pottery fragments that were discarded by Romans working at the docks on the Tiber where goods arrived at from Ostia.  Because pottery was such a cheap storage device, it was more economical to the Romans to discard used pots and make new ones, rather than clean them of olive oil, wine, garum and other goods shipped in large quantities.

Excavations continue at the Villa Vignacce outside Rome where the villa of a prominent friend of the Emperor Hadrian, Quintus Servilius Pudens, was recently identified.  Due to the increased interest in the Five Good Emperors following the discovery in Turkey of a series of colossal statues of Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian and their wives including the wife of Antoninus Pius, work done at the villa of Pudens could be very successful in terms of furthering our knowledge of the time.

The Torre del Palma in Portugal is the site of the largest Roman villa in Iberia, the Roman province of Further Spain.  For the most part, archaeological work appears to be complete and the project participants are now in the process of inventorying all the artifacts and completing their reports.

On the island of Menorca in Spain, an Iron Age structure later used by the Romans after they had annexed the territory has been discovered.  Work on the site is scheduled to continue throughout the Summer 2009 season.

In addition to these major Roman excavations, there are also several Etruscan and Greek projects on the go during this summer’s dig season.  A more complete listing of work in Europe can be found at this site.

Found in the Caska Bay near Novalja on the Croatian island of Pag, Professor Zdenko Brusic and his team have announced the discovery of a Roman sewn ship during the excavations of the sunken Roman town of Cissa.

A sewn ship is literally a ship made from pieces of tree bark that have been soaked in tar and then sewn together.  Once the bark hardens, the ship is both watertight and lightweight.  Excavating the site where the ship was found is expected to take two years.

What is interesting to note is that, apart from reference to this particular find, there is very little information available online for Roman sewn ships.  I would imagine that some work has been done, but it has clearly not made it into the public domain as yet so more research into this technique is needed before this writer can make a more complete post on the artifact.

It seems as though late spring is the time when any and all new technologies catch the eye of the public, and this particularly valuable to archaeology as the viable digging seasons – particularly for Rome, Greece and Egypt – are not until much later in the year (due to extreme temperatures).

In light of this, the University of Kentucky has announced that Gill Professor of Engineering, Brent Seales, will be attempting to read papyrus scrolls damaged during the famous eruption of Mt Vesuvius over the Bay of Naples in AD 79.  Destroying the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the fallout from the eruption proved a treasure to archaeologists from approximately the seventeenth century onward to the present day.  In the volcanic ash, Roman daily life was freeze-framed:  breakfast was on the table, the day’s business had begun, a political election had taken place only a few days earlier and the campaign grafitti was still on the walls of buildings, children were playing, dogs were chewing bones.

When the volcano erupted, though, certainly aspects of Roman daily life were destroyed – not least of which many of the people who lived in the towns died – and one of these aspects were papyrus scrolls, burnt to a crisp by the heat of the eruption. 

Using a technique similar to CT scans of the human body, Professor Seales will attempt to read the contents of these charred scrolls.  This could be particularly interesting since Herculaneum was home to the library of Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, and may contain some of the triumvir’s own compositions, as well as works by a contemporary Epicurean scholar.

In any situation where previously unknown or unreadable material from the Ancient World comes to light, people studying the history of Greece and Rome generally engage in a great deal of joyous speculation.  This writer will not only encourage that but participate fully and unabashedly.  Good luck to Professor Seales and his team.