Herculaneum: Works in Progress

This paper examines representations of maritime façades in the sacral-idyllic, or genre, landscape wall paintings featuring in early Roman luxury villas, along with the actual landscapes around the villas as well as contemporary ekphraseis, to address the emblematic character of these representations and tackle the ways in which they contributed to the formulation of Roman ideas of landscape.

Over fifteen years, the concept of virtual unwrapping as only a possibility has moved to a demonstrated process that has produced text from a scroll that cannot be physically opened (Seales et al. 2016). The intact Herculaneum scrolls, of which there are almost 300, however, continue to elude successful analysis and, as of this writing, remain unread. There are three primary challenges which, as the presentation will explain, will imminently be overcome, clearing the way for complete texts to be extracted from intact Herculaneum scrolls.

While most graffiti in Herculaneum were inscribed into the wall plaster using a sharp instrument such as a stylus or nail, others were drawn onto the wall plaster using charcoal or pigment. Such charcoal- or pigment-drawn inscriptions were once present at Herculaneum, Pompeii and the villas nearby, though almost none survive today. At Herculaneum, 40 graffiti were made using this method including both textual (Latin and Greek) and pictorial examples. Of these graffiti, only one partial graffito, which was made using red pigment, survives today.