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Funding for multidisciplinary field school at Portus

We have been awarded funding from a Student Centredness fund grant to create a unique field school at Portus that will provide the context for novel learning experiences to students from across the University, including an on-line infrastructure to build a community around a period of archaeological fieldwork in Italy. It will also benefit from a related SC project aimed at providing virtual access to the Portus fieldwork experience. Continue reading →

Photographing Portus

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. Continue reading →

Laser Scanning at Portus

In the past week myself and Gareth Beale have spent time capturing the subterranean areas of  the Imperial Palace at Portus. We have been trialing the use of the Leica Scan Station C10 for archaeological documentation and the results so far appear very impressive. All archaeological remains are subject to constant deterioration, this is especially true of substantial architectural remains such as the Imperial Palace. Continue reading →

Microsoft Research and UC Berkeley Collaboration – Portus Chronozoom

We have been working with colleagues in Microsoft Research and at UC Berkeley to create Chronozoom timelines that describe Roman archaeology, with a view to populating a timeline for the Roman world in due course. 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. Continue reading →

Portus, the Via Campana/Portuensis and Rome

My work on the Portus project concentrates on the surroundings of the port and aims at gaining a better understanding of the nature of connections between a port and associated hinterland. 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. Continue reading →

Building survey

Ahead of the restoration work, that has now moved to another wall within the excavation area, we undertook further building survey of the standing structures. The focus of today's work was to plan the top of a long wall (c.8m), ahead of its restoration, that leads into the area of the latrines. Continue reading →

Finds processing at the BSR

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. Continue reading →

Topographic survey

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. Continue reading →

Curriculum Innovation at Portus

We have received the first stage of approval for a new Curriculum Innovation Programme (CIP) module focused on Portus. The CIP is adding a new level of multi- and interdisciplinary education at the University of Southampton. CIP Portus will start in summer 2013 and offer a combination of hands-on practical archaeological training and academic content. Continue reading →