The Field School is featured on page 99 and application is still open!

We have been producing computer graphic representations as part of our work at Portus since 2007. These are used for a number of purposes. Firstly, they help us to bring together all the many forms of digital data gathered on site, through survey, geophysics, photogrammetry, laser scanning and other tools. For example, we are combining three-dimensional geophysics with laser scans and excavated sections to understand the development of the Building 5. In the documentary Rome’s Lost Empire, this has been interpreted as a building to house warships, even though there remain interpretative issues to resolve. The ground between the building and the water is more likely to have been sloped than raised as shown in the programme, thus making it possible for vessels to move in and out of the water.

Visualisation of Harbour produced by BBC for Rome’s Lost Empire in collaboration with Portus Project (click to enlarge)

Computer graphics also help us to develop our interpretations of the archaeological data we recover.  For example, at the corner of the surviving cistern complex (Palazzo Imperiale II) graphical simulation has helped us to understand how water may have been transported from one harbour building to another. The overview model of the site shown in the documentary is helping us to understand how the different parts of the site were inter-connected. It is an artistic interpretation based upon known archaeological data by the BBC graphic artists, with input from us.

A third use of the three-dimensional computer models has been to undertake formal analyses of different aspects of buildings at the site. For example, we have examined the lighting levels in buildings and considered how this might have affected their uses.

Statue of Trajan modelled and rendered by BBC for Rome’s Lost Empire, based upon known statues at Ostia and elsewhere, and designed in collaboration with Portus Project (click to enlarge)

Finally, still, animated and interactive computer graphics are enabling the project to communicate its interpretations widely.  In addition to creating these visuals ourselves, and working with experts like the BBC, we are interested in the role that computer graphic visuals play in a wider understanding of the site.

Models produced for Rome’s Lost Empire

In the year leading up to the broadcast of Rome’s Lost Empire the Portus Project team worked closely with the documentary team. In particular Simon Keay discussed many drafts of all of the models with the production team. We were particularly keen that existing knowledge of the site, which has been known since the 16th century, and our own impressions of how it once may have looked, could be translated to a wide audience. We had produced a series of visualisations of the site in the very first work on site funded by the AHRC. Whilst these now look very dated they demonstrated to us that modelling did not just help to express what we were thinking, but actually helped us to develop new ideas.

This impression has remained with us and in 2009, when we excavated part of the Imperial Palace (Palazzo Imperiale) and tried to make sense of the complex archaeological remains, modelling whilst on site gave us the opportunity to experiment with buildings, views, functions and so on, almost immediately after every new piece of archaeological information was recorded. We have continued to use modelling in our interpretations, including the simulations produced of the cistern blocks to the north of the Palazzo Imperiale.

Imperial Palace Render (Grant Cox ACRG, based on models developed in collaboration with BBC) (click to enlarge)

The western frontage of the Imperial Palace was an imposing sight as ships first entered the inner harbour at Portus. We have produced a number of representations of this in recent years and provided the BBC with these models. They further developed them with input from Simon Keay and Janet Delaine (University of Oxford), drawing upon known contemporary buildings and materials at Rome, but in the end the programme didn’t include them. The BBC provided us with their models, however, and we have carried on working with them, producing work such as the visualisation above. Below you can see an early version of this same building that we produced as part of an animation by Gareth Beale (ACRG)  in 2009.

Since then we have done a lot of work in trying to understand the structural properties of buildings such as this and the likely materials used in its construction and decoration. For example, we have tried methods such as Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) to produce records of the subtle surface properties that define the appearance of these buildings and the objects originally contained within them. Below you can see one example of this where the imaging technique helped in the identification of a brick stamp.

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) data from a brick stamp found on site at Portus

Elsewhere in the documentary there are other models that reflect the sense of our ongoing interpretations. For example, we believe that Building 5 housed ships of some kind as we have recently argued in a scientific paper, even though some interpretational issues remain. In the documentary, however, the structure is shown housing ships even though the ground in front of it has been left level rather sloped, since this is an unresolved issue which we are addressing in ongoing work. We have produced a great many models of this particular area, one of which is shown in the page about building 5.  Below you can see a still from the Rome’s Lost Empire documentary which gives a sense of the sheer scale of the structure, measuring c 240m by 60m. However the structural remains of this building might be interpreted, this was a colossal feat of engineering.

Hypothesised structure modelled and rendered by BBC for Rome’s Lost Empire, in collaboration with Portus Project (click to enlarge)

The simulation of building 5 was a multi-stage process. Firstly, as with other parts of the site we conducted a detailed geophysical survey of the area. By using three-dimensional geophysical techniques such as ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistance tomography we were able to build up hypotheses of the layout of the building.

This, coupled with excavation, gave us a sense of the physical properties of the building. The excavated remains have been recorded in part via laser scanning – a method that provides a rapid, very detailed three-dimensional record of the archaeology. (You can read a recent blog post about our latest laser scanning work inside the Imperial Palace here).

Screenshot of scanning data from recent fieldwork at Portus (James Miles ACRG)

This detailed information can then be fed into the kind of software usually used by architects and engineers to design buildings. We use them to test the physical properties of hypothetical structures.

Magnified deflected shape of displacement of the hypothetical form of Building 5 (James Miles ACRG)

Having examined the physical properties of the potential structures we use this information to feed into an approach known as procedural modelling. This software technique allows computer models to be generated automatically on the basis of inputs such as the likely forms proposed by the structural analysis, the forms of similar Roman buildings, and our interpretations of the most likely functions of the building.

We have so far produced more than a hundred versions of the building automatically in this way, and used these to inform our preferred option for the BBC to work with. As television makes it difficult to present a great many hypotheses we felt that this approach gave the single representation chosen the most weight. The computer cannot replace the knowledge of Roman archaeological and architectural specialists but it can provide a means to make this form of scholarship visible, and produce models upon which to base further interpretations.

Automatically generated procedural models of the exterior and interior of building 5, based on the archaeological information available (Matthew Harrison ACRG) (click to enlarge)

Below you can see another view of the results of this modelling, further developed by visualisation experts at the BBC for the documentary. It only lasts a few seconds on screen but represents months of hard, and fun, work by dozens of archaeologists on the Portus Project.  I hope that if you saw it you really enjoyed the programme!

Visualisation of building 5 showing the ongoing excavations behind, produced by BBC for Rome’s Lost Empire in collaboration with Portus Project (click to enlarge)

I’ll leave this post with the pharos, or lighthouse. In our own modelling work we had never attempted to visualise this enormous structure, except in a schematic way at the very start of the project. We have produced models of the much smaller lighthouse at the entrance to the inner harbour, which was based on similar comparative evidence – some surviving remains at Portus and elsewhere, and Roman visual representations of lighthouses. The Pharos as modelled and animated by the BBC is based upon representations recorded on mosaics and carvings at Ostia and Rome, and what is known of the Roman lighthouse at Lepcis Magna and the great Pharos of Alexandria. It demonstrates what I have always thought was one of the key things in archaeological visualisation. For all the hard work and scholarship in interpreting the past, for all the analysis and simulation and development of scientific hypotheses, archaeology remains a creative and emotional process. Travelling back in time, albeit via a computer model, is a way to think about our modern world of course. But it is also nice sometimes to get lost in a different world – and the Pharos visualisation does that perfectly.

Pharos visualisation produced by BBC for Rome’s Lost Empire in collaboration with Portus Project (click to enlarge)

If you would like to learn more about our modelling work at Portus and indeed any other aspect of the project sign up to our newsletter.

If you would like to learn the skills that were employed by our CGI archaeology experts at Portus then you can study on the course that they did – the MSc in Archaeological Computing (Virtual Pasts).

Being involved in the film has reinforced my belief that as archaeologists we have a responsibility to do the best we can in getting across to the general public what it is that we do and how it changes the way we look at the past. I am also very much looking forward to be being able to welcome a new batch of students from the University of Southampton and partner institutions to the Portus field school that we are planning to run at the site for the first time in June and July of next year. It marks another stage in our ongoing research at the site.

Filming for the BBC Rome – What Lies Beneath programme.
Photo Hembo Pagi

Links

• Rome’s Lost Empire – BBC One in the UK on Sunday 9th December 8:40pm

You can watch it now on BBC iPlayer from within the UK.

If you are interested in behind the scenes information on the computer graphics on the programme and how it benefits our research read the Reconstructing Portus – Rome’s Lost Empire post.

You can find out further details on the main BBC website. Members of the Portus team tweeted during the broadcast using #portusproject and #RomesLostEmpire. You can keep up to date on developments at Portus and in our other research by following @ArchCRG

You can also watch the latest trail featuring Dan Snow in the video at the bottom of this page.

BBC filming at Portus. Photo Hembo Pagi

Links

• News release describing the Portus story
• Our undergraduate and postgraduate students get involved in Portus each year. If you would like to learn more about studying at Southampton visit our archaeology department website.
• The Portus project is using ChronoZoom, from Microsoft Research, to allow visitors to travel through time and find out more about Portus. ChronoZoom brings Big History to life, from the Big Bang to the present day, all through your web browser. Explore Portus in ChronoZoom now Learn more about the collaboration on our chronozoom blog post.
• Learn about the other archaeological computing research and teaching in the Archaeological Computing Research Group (ACRG) at the University of Southampton. Become a “space archaeologist” yourself!
• Behind the scenes details of the CGI work.
• See how we are going to provide virtual fieldwork experiences of Portus for disabled students and others with limited access to the site
• Lots more exciting projects relating to ports and the maritime past can be discovered at the University of Southampton Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA).
• There is another preview of the programme on the BBC Video For Learning website.

Read more >>

The field school will eventually host a Curriculum Innovation Programme module, Southampton archaeology UG student field training, MSc Archaeological Survey and Landscape students, and overseas students from archaeology, anthropology and related disciplines. In addition UG, PGI and PGR students from across the University will be encouraged to participate. The Portus multi-disciplinary field school will provide the opportunity for a new educational experience open to all students at the University, by offering hands-on, team-focused training in a variety of techniques used in modern archaeological fieldwork. The students will be exposed to techniques belonging to different scientific disciplines (including computing, geology, geophysics, biology), and research methods of social and human sciences (including history, classics, history of art), and will grow as interdisciplinary scholars and mediators – crucial skills in the modern world.

Working underground presents a unique photographic challenge: Here we can see myself and James Miles laser scanning a subterranean corridor in the Imperial Palace. The long exposures required to capture a dimly lit scene mean that light and movement take on the form of blurs and shadows.

Photography has been extremely important to the Portus Project. The photographic record which has been created as we have been working on the site allows us to re-visit and interpret the excavations at many levels. As well as a vast archive of photographs depicting excavated contexts, sections and objects we also have a substantial collection of images which depict the day to day life of an archaeological excavation.

As part of our October 2012 season at Portus we have been supplementing and expanding this photographic record. As well as conventional photographs we have been using a Gigapan robotic tripod head to capture panoramic views of the site and the excavations. Once processed, these images will allow the archaeological area to be interactively explored by users who will be able to navigate these 3D panoramas. Extremely high resolution images captured at up to 24 megapixels using a Nikon D3X will allow viewers to focus in on the areas and details of the excavation which interest them. This may be a recently excavated building, a wonderfully preserved Trajanic harbour frontage or the tools of the archaeologists or conservators working on site.

A lot of the work taking place at the moment has been located in and around the Imperial Palace. This series of buildings (situated at the heart of the Trajanic harbour complex) provides a unique insight into the work and lives of the people who inhabited the harbours and warehouses of Portus. It also represents a fantastic opportunity to document the activities which are taking place at the site today.

Laser Scanning which is currently taking place will produce a unique 3D record of the site. Documenting the laser scanning process in photographs will provide a fascinating insight into high tech capture techniques in the most inaccessible areas of the Imperial Palace.

We have also been lucky enough to witness the efforts of expert conservators, working to stabilise and protect the exposed areas of the buildings. The photographs we are taking will enable us to look back and to see the buildings both before and after this important work has taken place.

The images we are taking will provide an opportunity for people to explore a unique archaeological site for themselves.  As well as allowing viewers to interpret the archaeology we hope that these images capture the character of day to day life on an archaeological site.

All archaeological remains are subject to constant deterioration, this is especially true of substantial architectural remains such as the Imperial Palace. As well as suffering from the usual effects of weathering and exposure, large structures are also subject to additional stresses caused by their weight and the age and degradation of building materials. These stresses can be compounded through excavation and as such the use of 3D recording techniques can provide a valuable record of structural remains for further analysis and virtual conservation.

The use of a time of flight laser scanner such as the C10 allows us to record large areas of architecture quickly and at very high resolution. We have been recording the exposed areas of the Imperial Palace at 1cm resolution providing a record of the current form which will be of use to archaeologists and conservators across the world, providing virtual access to the remains as they currently exist. In addition these data will also have a significant legacy providing a record which will doubtless be of great utility to researchers and cultural heritage professionals in the future.

Below are a few images which highlight the laser scanner in action and document the unique capabilities of laser scanning for working under circumstances which would prove challenging with traditional modes of archaeological recording.

Our first pilot has been at Portus, where we have charted the creation and eventual abandonment of the site. We have only just started to develop the Portus Chronozoom and there is much more multimedia content to add but please do have a look, and at the wider Chronozoom project. Once in Chronozoom choose Portus Tour from the list of guided tours at the top.

Check back here for updates in the near future.

Portus Chronozoom

Links

The Portus Chronozoom

The main Chronozoom project website

Via Portuensis, Eufrosino della Volpaia (1547)

I use an interdisciplinary research design that integrates the traditional archaeological approaches to studying trade through the distribution of ceramics, and epigraphic-based approaches to study of the origin and movement of individuals, with help from the IT-based methodologies of landscape archaeology. The initial focus of this work was the area of Via Campana/Portuensis which facilitated Portus’ overland link with Rome, and findings have been presented at the AIEGL Conference in Berlin in August 2012. Currently I am enlarging this area to include the left bank of the Tiber- surroundings of Ostia and Via Ostiensis. The patterns observed will then be compared with the material from some of the other Western Mediterranean ports with comparable levels of archaeological and epigraphic research and publication- most probably Hispalis, Tarraco, and Leptis Magna. Interrelationships between port-based individuals and their involvement in observable movements of goods into and between ports will be researched, and contextualized through their impact upon the port hinterland. This work should provide valuable insight into the workings of port networks and the associated communities in the Roman Mediterranean.

Restoration work on the walls of the Palazzo Imperiale

Whilst I recorded the prospect of the walls during an earlier phase of work (in July) using photogrammetry, we are now additionally planning the tops of the walls in order to draw together an accurate plan.

I also drew a large section (using the RL on the TS) with a late antique staircase, again ahead of its restoration. I’ll now process these drawings and take them back to site tomorrow morning to check them and add some detail by hand.

However the biggest excitement of the day was the discovery of a white mosaic, in an area which we began clearing today ahead of some landscaping work above the excavation (in order to remove some heavy soil overburden)…

The brick with textile embedded in it

Jude and I are currently in Rome carrying out finds processing in the laboratory of the British School at Rome. We have been processing for a few days discovering fairly run-of-the-mill stuff in the bags and boxes. For Jude this is brick stamps and for me a lot of nails, rusty and corroded. Today, however, was a good day when pearls came out of the many oysters we have opened. Jude (who says hello as she is not blogging herself) in her processing of bricks enjoys finding the human element and today we had evidence for a piece of textile. Inside a brick. Unusually, the textile had somehow got into the clay mix and become part of a brick. It was, however, close to the surface and when the surface spalled off (taking with it part of an epigraphic stamp) the weaver’s pattern was revealed. A simple weave and apparently just a rag lost in the mix.

In contrast, after several days of tacks and nails, I found a little gem. Not literally but one of those finds that makes you exercise your brain and scratch your head. I have no idea what it is. This then provokes the act of interpretation, which is to say, knowledgeable guessing. For the reader, it is a type of bronze bar and not a nail so already a different calibre of finds. It appears complete-ish. It has three small evenly spaced loops on it. The process then involves developing a hunch, ruling out everything it can’t be, and inevitably coming up with an idea of something you haven’t actually encountered before, otherwise you would know what it is… Bearing all that in mind, my favourite interpretation (and there are really not many known possibilities) is that we have the string holder of a three stringed lute or lyre. This sends me off to the library (luckily I’m at an institution with a wonderful library just downstairs). The problem is that rare as hen’s teeth are archaeological bits of lutes, and although there are many, many paintings and sculpture I have not found one with the fine detail that I am after. Some images show conflicting evidence of pegs at the string holder but most show rectangular bars either thin or quite wide. I have learnt a lot in about two hours of looking but I am not yet able to say for sure what the item is and this process will be repeated many times, with many specialists consulted before I can come up with an interpretation I am happy with!

Following the start of the new season of excavation at the Palazzo Imperiale, being undertaken together with a restoration project, we have started planning all the walls and floor surfaces. A few months back I undertook a photogrammetric survey of all the standing walls that will be restored in the area, and am now fixing these into the site plan. Yesterday we cleaned USM11043 and began a detailed survey of the wall.

As CIP students are drawn from disciplines from across the University the module will emphasise the multidisciplinary nature of contemporary archaeological practice and encourage all students to explore the intersections and differences between their core discipline and archaeological field practice. As archaeological field investigations are problem oriented, importance and difficulties of creating an appropriate research design to answer specific questions in a field setting will also be discussed. We hope to complete the module design before Christmas 2012 and to accept students from Semester 2 2012/13.

Read more >>

Download the report

The building is rectangular in form and extended from west to east for a minimum of 145m along the northern side of the Trajanic hexagonal basin, at the heart of the port. Its primary face dates to the Trajanic period (possibly AD 110-117). The main body of the building was articulated around a series of massive brick-faced concrete piers that defined eight parallel bays around 60m long that ran from north to south and opened onto both the Claudian and Trajanic basins.

The current excavations have uncovered a wide vaulted passage that defined the western side of the complex, as well as the most westerly of the bays. They suggest that the individual bays were approx 12m wide and 58m long, that the rectangular piers measured approx 2m x 1.5m, and piers at the southern end measured approx 3m x 1.7m. The finish and sheer size of the latter makes it clear that the principal entrance probably lay to the south and that it comprised a massive arch; it is also clear, however, that could be entered by a substantial opening on its northern side.

This work complements extensive geophysical survey and topographical work carried out in recent years and suggests that the building as a whole comprised around ten of these bays that together would have presented a monumental arched façade onto the Trajanic basin. Their scale is best appreciated when it is realised that the vaulted bay would have originally stood to upwards of around 12m or more: the impact of this best appreciated by looking at the surviving vaulted hall of Trajan’s Markets at Rome (AD 100-110), which has a similar bay with a width of 9.8m which stands to a height of 12m. In terms of layout, the building is without a ready parallel at Portus or Ostia, and its closest parallel is the building traditionally identified as the Porticus Aemilia (190 BC) at the river port of Rome itself, and which has a total length of 487m composed of 50 bays with a length of 60m and width of 8.30m.

The scale, position and uniqueness of the building lead the team to believe that this building played a key role in the construction and repair of ships at Portus. In particular, it is suggested that it may have been used for the construction of ships, and to shelter them in the winter months. It could also have been used for housing the large supplies of wood, canvas and other supplies that would have reached the building by way of the Claudian port and fed through the northern entrances. A mosaic found at a villa on the Via Labicana (a road leading south east of Rome), represents the façade of a building very similar to this one, with a ship clearly visible in each of the bays of an arched façade very similar to the way that the example would have looked. The finishing of the ships themselves would have taken place on a flat area approx 30m wide between the façade of this building and the edge of the Trajanic basin, benefitting the from the comparative calm offered by this sheltered basin. Members of the Archaeological Computing Research Group of the University of Southampton led by Dr Graeme Earl, working closely with members of the Portus Project team, and in consultation with colleagues at the Centre Camille Jullian of the Universite d’Aix-Marseille-CNRS (for ship information), have produced some initial computer-graphic images that help explain how it is currently believed that this building might have looked in antiquity. These images employ procedural modelling technologies such as CityEngine which enable a wide range of alternative interpretations of the building to be produced and examined. The most likely of these are then transferred to software such as 3ds Max, more commonly seen in the production of film and television graphics, to produce visualisations designed to inspire new ideas and to represent the conclusions drawn from the modelling and extensive archaeological analyses.

Shipbuilding activities at Portus have been mentioned in stone inscriptions from the port, and neighbouring Ostia, referring to the guild or corporation (collegium) of the fabri navales portensium or the fabri navales ostiensium, consisting of wealthy freed slaves. It needs to be understood in the context of the Imperial Palace, or Palazzo Imperiale, which have also been the subject of recent excavations by Professor Keay and his team, and which they argue was a key complex at which was centred an imperial official charged with coordinating the movement of ships and cargoes within the port as a whole. The sheltering and repair of ships has also recently been argued for Ostia, although the proposed site was on a much smaller scale than this one.

This discovery has major implications for our understanding of the role of Portus. It is generally assumed that this, and indeed, many of the buildings at Portus were warehouses, and that the port was primarily an area of transshipment. This discovery, however, adds to evidence that it was the focus of other vitally important activities that helped define Portus’ role as the maritime port of Imperial Rome. Our building would have encompassed c. eight concrete vaulted bays whose façade would have dominated the whole of this side of the hexagonal basin. In addition to suggesting that the port was the site of the shipyards of Imperial Rome during the early to later 2^nd century AD, it also raises the possibility that ships from the imperial fleet headquarters at Misenum (Miseno), on the Bay of Naples, might have been sheltered or repaired here. If so then it becomes easier to accept the idea that Portus may have had some kind of naval role to complement that of the great naval base at Misenum to the south.

Inscriptions mentioning sailors from the Misenum fleet have been found at the site as well as at Rome itself. It needs to be stressed, however, that there is as yet no evidence for ship ramps that one might expect to have witnessed the launch of ships into the Trajanic basin: if they existed they would lie beneath the early 20^th century embankment that currently runs around the outside of the hexagonal basin. It is thus difficult to know whether military ships or merchant ships might have been repaired or launched here. However, the length and width of the bay were sufficient for it to have housed a large merchant ship, of the scale of the well-known Madrague des Giens, an earlier wreck, but which was approx 10m wide by 40m long. If the shipshed on the Via Labicana mosaic was a representation of the Portus shipyard building, and the ships represented were military, then it is possible that the building might have housed military ships.

It is hoped that a new phase of excavations taking place during September and October 2011 will provide an answer to this question. They will also help shed light on the later history of this building, which sees the function of this particular bay transformed with the construction of a series of adjacent rooms within it on a new east-west alignment in the later 2^nd/early 3^rd centuries AD, the conversion of these into granaries in the later 5^th century AD, and their systematic demolition as a defensive measure during wars between the Byzantines and Ostrogoths in the early to mid 6^th centuries AD.

Photographs from the Portus Project are available on our Flickr site. The Portus Project Photostream is online. You can also see a Portus Project Slideshow.

This new project builds upon the results of the earlier project and has been designed to address key questions about the roles that Portus played in Rome’s relationship with the Mediterranean between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD. It represents a continuation of successful and longstanding collaborations between the Universities of Southampton and Cambridge, the British School at Rome, and the Italian authorities. Its first aim is to undertake limited excavation and geophysical survey to complete our understanding of a group of seven major buildings that were focused upon the “Imperial Palace”, an enigmatic complex at the centre of the port. Attention is first directed towards using these as the basis for understanding the scale of imperial investment in Rome’s port infrastructure at Portus, Civitavecchia and the City itself. Their appearance, functions and relationships to the harbour basins and the rest of the port infrastructure are then studied with a view to making a contribution to our understanding of how the port complex worked as a whole, drawing upon a programme of innovative computer visualization.

Computer simulations of the capacity of the harbour basins for handling and berthing ships and boats will also be used to address research questions about changing scales of commerce at the port; this will be complemented by an analysis of finds from four of the buildings excavated in the course of the Portus Project which will characterize the geographical origins of the ceramics, marble and environmental material passing between Rome and the Mediterranean through Portus. Furthermore a re-analysis of earlier geophysical results will be used to define areas of residential settlement in the port, while an innovative isotope analysis of human bone, food remains and ceramic food containers will be used to establish a “food-web” and help characterize ethnic and social differentiation amongst its inhabitants.

• Read the Daily Telegraph article (11 July, 2010)

The image shows an aerial view from Portus across the Fossa Traiana towards the Isola Sacra with Ostia in the far distance, an area that was crossed by the newly discovered canal.

The Portus team have found what we think is one of the biggest canals ever built by the Romans. Our geophysics work has identified what appears to be a 90 metre-wide canal, running southwards across the Isola Sacra from the maritime port of Portus to the river port at Ostia. Our current hypothesis is that this may have enabled cargo to be transferred from big ocean-going ships to smaller river vessels at Portus, and then on via the canal to Ostia for handling at the river port. Such a canal would have replaced the supposed overland route along the Via Flavia. Our latest work provides a new and important contribution to understanding the broader relationship of Portus to both Ostia and Rome.

We know of other, contemporary canals at the port which were 20-40 metres wide, and even those were big. But this is wider than anything we have found to date at Portus. It was so big that there seems to have been an island in the middle of it, and there was a bridge that crossed it. This new information further develops our understanding of the extraordinary trading network that the Romans developed throughout the Mediterranean basin, from Spain to Egypt and Asia Minor. Our work at Portus is also providing compelling evidence that trading links with North Africa in particular were much more extensive than previously believed. We have found hundreds of amphorae which were used to transport oil, wine and a pungent fermented fish sauce called garum from what is now modern Tunisia and Libya. Huge quantities of wheat were also imported from what were then the provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Egypt. The recent work has shown is that there was a particular preference for large scale imports of wheat from North Africa from the late 2nd century AD right through to the 5th and maybe 6th centuries. It is our belief that Portus and Ostia would have been home to a large expatriate population of North African trading families and commercial agents, the names of whom have been preserved on inscribed tombstone and career inscriptions. The population would have been very cosmopolitan and there would have been significant numbers of people from a range of ports and cities in Africa Proconsularis.

The recent geophysical discoveries have further emphasised how much less is known about Portus than neighbouring Ostia, and that there are many discoveries waiting to be unearthed which could augment the understanding of ancient Rome’s sophisticated trading network. These and other discoveries were presented at a workshop held at the British School at Rome on the 12th July, organized by Simon Keay (University of Southampton/British School at Rome) and Angelo Pellegrino (Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma).

The Project featues on the home page of the AHRC website, as a podcast interview with Professor Simon Keay and Dr Graeme Earl. Portus is also prominent as a front page and feature in the latest issue of ‘Podium’, the AHRC magazine.

Read more:

• AHRC website
• AHRC Magazine Podium 14, 2010

Further details of funding and support are available online.

BBC Click Online (first broadcast 17 October on BBC News 24)

View programme on BBC iPlayer archive at 1.00.

CNN International

ITV Meridian Tonight

BBC South Today

Podcast

A podcast introducing the Portus project has gone online. It can be viewed by clicking on the image below.

We have developed some initial simulations of the site as a whole, implemented in a number of graphical formats – Google SketchUp and Google Earth, 3ds Max and Second Life. (Follow SLURL link to Portus II; if the SLURL does not take you straight there use the Portus Project teleporter in the University of Southampton welcome area). In addition to interactive models we have prepared a series of animations. These are used as a tool to stimulate discussion relating to factors such as the use of the site, visual structuring of the port landscape, navigation and port logistics, and so on. The first stage was based on a detailed laser scan of Gismondi’a Portus plastico. Subsequent models have added details and demonstrated the variety of possible interpretations.

A series of digital views of Portus have been produced by the Archaeological Computing Research Group at Southampton.

A number of publications also relate to this work:

• Earl, G.P., Keay, S.J. and Beale, G. In press. Archaeological computing for recording and presentation of Roman Portus. In Keay, S.J. and Paroli, L. (eds) Proceedings of the First Portus Workshop, held at the British School at Rome, March 2008. British School at Rome Monographs.
• Earl, G.P., Keay, S.J. and Beale, G.C. In press. Evaluating Gismondi’s Representation of Portus, the Port of Imperial Rome. In Proceedings of Arqueologica 2.0 Seville 2009.
• Earl, G.P., Keay, S.J. and Beale, G. 2008. Computer Graphic Modelling at Portus: Analysis, Reconstruction and Representation of the Claudian and Trajanic Harbours. In Proceedings of EARSEL SIG Remote Sensing for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Rome 2008.

Portus II