So- called Villa of Augustus - Updates and Open Days

To celebrate the results of this year's fieldwork and share the new discoveries with the general public, the so-called Villa of Augustus will be open this weekend (6-7 Oct, 9am-5pm).
Since 2002, this annual event has constantly increased in importance among the locals and last year roughly 3,000 people visited the site in just two days.

The most interesting discovery of the year is probably the presence of ploughing furrows and footprints of animals which were escaping the eruption in AD 472.

If you are unfamiliar with the site, you can find a brief introduction (in Italian) here.
If you want to visit the site, you can its localisation here.
If you are curious about the local legends about the site, we collected them in this page.

The Roman Villa, the Medieval Church, and the local population

Roccarainola - On Saturday, 15 September the Apolline Project presented the findings of their 2011-12 excavation seasons from the Medieval Church (built with Roman spolia) of Sant'Arcangelo to the general populace of the town at the Museum of Roccarainola.

The conference panel featured the director of the excavation, Nicola De Carlo, the project's ceramic anaylist, Vincenzo Castaldo, in addition to the project's anthropologist, Amanda James. Underlying the presentation was the expressed need for the general populace of Roccarainola to gain a more spirited understanding of their region's history and a valuable perspective into the the lives of their predecessors. Conference participants appreciated an enthusiastic audience as well as a thought provoking question and answer session following the presentation.

Further information on the Roman Villa and the Medieval Church can be found here. An overview of the bone remains is provided here.

Cultural Heritage and Human Development on the Dark Side of Vesuvius

In order to find ways to contribute to the human development of Campania while better caring for the archaeological heritage, the Apolline Project recently hosted Alexander Smithers, a Masters student of Cultural Heritage and International Development currently at the University of East Anglia under the supervision of Dr Akira Matsuda. Research carried out during this visit will form the basis of a management plan intended to further these goals. As the Apolline Project aspires to be as open as possible, we asked him to write a few pages on his findings so far which we have now posted on our website. We have done this in order to stimulate discussion in the area of public archaeology and how it intersects with development issues. We hope that we can start a debate on these pages in response to this, considering the valuable contributions made in this field by many scholars to Blogging Pompeii.

http://www.apollineproject.org/cultural-heritage.html