Reflections on recent developments in Pompeii

Head still spinning from an afternoon spent with the team and the Architect Raffaele Martinelli.  Raffaele introduced us to all the superb data now held by colleagues at Pompeii following the survey, scanning and documentation elements of the Great Pompeii Project.  The work our colleagues have achieved has been nothing less than spectacular.  I am used to database development and the use of high resolution scanning data, but even so, to see it so readily ordered in such comprehensive coverage of this city is something to behold. 

Millions of visitors have already benefitted from the front of house work that has conserved and re-opened extensive swathes of the ancient city, and the Great Pompeii Project has got to be one of the most impressive examples of interdisciplinary work, backed by national and European Regional Development Fund support anywhere, but to go through the data with Raffaele is to see a profoundly exciting vision of the future.  The material gathered is of the highest quality, beautifully organised and structured according to model principles. 

Pompeii has inspired students of antiquity on account of its remains for centuries, but the material Raffaele has shown me this afternoon leaves me in no doubt that our colleagues have also built a twenty-first century platform that will transform research into the city’s future.

Professor Ian Haynes

Last modified: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 17:40:37 GMT