Hadrian's Villa - your contribution needed to a public consultation

During their 2012 meeting, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee invited the Italian state to provide further information on a housing development planned for an 120,000m3 area within the buffer zone around Hadrian’s Villa and recently approved by Tivoli town council. A questionnaire has been created as part of a broader evaluation of the complex issues related to the impact of this development on Hadrian’s Villa and anyone interested in the site is asked to complete it and add their comments.
See the Ministry of Culture's website for further details or go directly to the questionnaire in Italian or English.
It will be possible to fill in this questionnaire online until Sunday 9 March 2014.

A call for contributions (PBMP)

To the community of Pompeian scholars,

The Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project needs your help: bibliography, full text, and maps. Information on contributing can be found here: http://digitalhumanities.umass.edu/pbmp/?p=963 . Full text items - ebooks, pdf offprints, personal scans, etc. - are particularly needed right now. 

Please share this call with anyone who might be interested.

- EP

Pompeii Research Seminars: Lecture 2

Dr. Rick Jones gave the second paper yesterday, talking about issues surrounding excavation in Pompeii and the future of research, tourism, and management of the site. The video can be viewed here.

PBMP Post #4: Mapping the Mapping Metadata

The fourth installment of the Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project's blog is now posted on our site. For those inclined, you can read "Mapping the Mapping Metadata" here: http://digitalhumanities.umass.edu/pbmp/?p=919.

- EP

Call for Posters: “Framing interactions. Approaches to coexistence in the houses of Roman Pompeii”

Call for Posters: “Framing interactions. Approaches to coexistence in the houses of Roman Pompeii”  

A poster session at the 11th Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC) and the 24th Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC), University of Reading, UK, 

27-30 March 2014 

Given the particular relevance of the Vesuvian area in this year’s RAC/TRAC programme (www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/archaeology/RAC2014_Handbook__v11.pdf), the Munich Graduate School for Ancient Studies ‘Distant Worlds’ intends to contribute to the conference with a thematic poster session on Roman housing in Pompeii.

In addition to the RAC / TRAC bursaries' scheme, ‘Distant Worlds’ is therefore offering 5 further bursaries to cover the conference charges* of PhD students or early-career scholars who wish to present their current research as part of the poster session. The aim is to give young scholars the opportunity to present their work to a larger public of specialists and to fuel debate on key issues in Roman housing and the site of Pompeii.

*up to 100 GBP = ca. 120€, see www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/Conferences/RAC2014/arch-RAC2014-registration.aspx

Posters should address the multi-faceted issues of the coexistence of otium and negotium, of public and private, and of inhabitants and visitors which marks the use and perception of Roman domestic space. Contributions addressing architecture and decoration, archaeological finds, and epigraphic or textual evidence are equally welcome. Topics may include – but are not limited to – communication within the house, the relationship between inside and outside, the incorporation of shops and workshops, informal and formal meeting places, and the construction of family as related to space.

To submit a poster for consideration, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, outlining the topic and content of the poster, to the organisers by 21st February 2014. Selected posters will be published on the website of ‘Distant Worlds’.

Polly.Lohmann@campus.lmu.de and Anna.Anguissola@lmu.de

Call for Papers: Public and Private in the Roman House and Society, November 7-8, 2014, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae (Rome, Italy)

Abstract deadline: May 1, 2014

E-mail: romanhouse2014@gmail.com

Ancient Roman houses were designed to suit both the private life of its occupants and the demands of public life. As a result, the division between public and private spaces inside the domus was a complicated topic even for the Romans themselves. Previous scholarship has tended to treat the domus in terms of a rigid division between public and private, with the same division acting as a gender marker for (male) political activities and (female) domestic activities respectively. This strict division within the household now seems outdated. The aim of this conference, then, is to take a fresh look at notions of public and private within the domus by exploring the public and private spheres of the Roman house from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The “Public and Private in the Roman House and Society” is an ongoing project organizing its third major event, building on the success of a workshop at NYU (October 2012) and a conference at University of Helsinki (April 2013).

We therefore invite papers that explore the complex relationship between public and private in Roman society from a variety of perspectives – historical, archaeological, philological, architectural and anthropological – in order to further the understanding of the domus as a place for social, cultural, political and administrative action.

Potential themes include but are not limited to:
- Painting the line between private and public spheres. Wall paintings and decorative art in the debate of public and private.
- Private houses in Ostia and the city of Rome.
- Parks and recreation. Nature and garden between public and private space.
- Private nights? Night life in the Roman house.
- Terminology of public and private in the ancient context.
- Infrastructure, water and sanitation. A public or private task?

The conference is organized by the project Public and Private in the Roman House (http:// romanhouse.org/), which seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate on privacy in the ancient world as well as the issues of how the limits between public and private spaces were drawn. In an attempt to gain new perspectives on these questions, the project seeks to utilize comparative anthropological theories concerning the conceptualization of the public/private interface.

Please submit your abstract (300 words) as a [word/pdf] file to Mr Samuli Simelius at romanhouse2014@gmail.com Please include your name, academic affiliation and address in your email.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is May 1, 2014

Pompeii Research Seminars

After I posted the advertisement for the Pompeii seminar series being held at the University of Leeds, I had numerous requests for wider availability. The first paper, given by Professor Peter Kruschwitz earlier today, is now available to view on my own blog.

I hope to be able to post the remaining papers as they happen, so do check the blog within a day or so of the seminar taking place.

Mosaic of an unswept floor from Pompeii

We are searching for a floor mosaic from Pompeii showing the floor of a room badly cleaned after a meal, with the debris of the food left on the floor. This type of mosaic is known as Asarotos Oikos/Asavotos Oicos/Asaroton Oecus.

Photo of floor from Vigna Lupi, Rome (similar to the one meant to be from Pompeii).

Can anyone help, as we have no access to PPM here in the “wilds” of Australia, could someone look at PPM for the house at Ins.Occ. VI.17.32-36, to see if there is any mention of this mosaic, and send us the information from those pages, as we are interested in this house anyway.

The house was found by the Bourbon excavators (around 1759), then partly excavated around 1808 and 1818.  Having searched through all the PAH entries (Spanish and Italian) we don’t think we have found any mention of it.

In our books, the earliest we have found it is in Mazois of 1824, when talking about the House of Polibio (VI.17.32-36), he describes the house, and then it seems talks generally about mosaics including the “asavotos oicos”. (Mazois II, 1824, pages 52-53)

We have been told the mosaic was found in Pompeii, but it was not known from where, and is now in the Naples Museum.  Our expert on the Naples Museum does not know of it.

A real mystery, please can you help. 

Jackie and Bob