Roman Archaeology

Roman Archaeology Meta-Sites Roman Archaeology: Introductory Images and Museums Excavations and Specific Sites Good Books

Meta-Sites: Links to More Information

• The Rome Project. A vast collection of resources about the Roman world, including archaeology, literature, military, politics, philosophy, religion, theater, and maps of Rome.
• Lacus Curtius: Into the Roman World. Includes a Roman Gazeteer, list of 1700 RomanSites, texts, atlas, Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and selections from Platner's Topography of Ancient Rome.
• Perseus Project, an evolving digital library on ancient Greece and Rome. Images, texts, maps, essays, on-line Greek-English and Latin-English lexicons, plus much more. Great site for students of Greek and Roman art, archaeology, history, literature, and language.
• Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
• VRoma Links to other sites.

On-Line Courses

• Nick Cahill, Roman Art and Archaeology and Survey of Ancient and Medieval Art (University of Wisconsin) includes lecture notes, images, and links.
• Pedar Foss, Roman Art and Archaeology (DePauw University) contains lots of useful links.
• James Higginbotham, Introduction to Roman Archaeology (Bowdoin College), primarily images (slow loading).

The Roman world: Introductory

• Maps for Students. On-line and downloadable maps of the ancient Greek and Roman world (Ancient World Mapping Project).
• Encyclopedia Romana. Introduction to Roman architecture, art, history and society.
• Exploring Ancient World Cultures: Ancient Rome. Includes a chronology, essays, images, texts, and other interesting stuff.
• De Imperatoribus Romanis. Links to biographies of emperors, family trees, atlas, catalogue of historic battles, and virtual catalog of Roman coins.
• The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook--Rome: Republic and Empire.
• Rome: Republic to Empire, essays and images on the Roman house, leisure and entertainment, gladiatorial games, the Roman army, and more.
• Antony Kamm's The Romans, a website to accompany the popular introductory textbook; includes short essays, images, and maps.
• Online Resources: The Romans contains links to history, invasions, rebellions, the Roman army, families and children, leisure, religion, and technology
• VRoma MOO. Travel through virtual Rome on-line! Log-on as guest, leave password blank, and click Connect.

Images and Museums

• Rome Reborn: A Video Tour of Ancient Rome in 320 CE (Frischer)
• Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome
• VRoma Image Archive
• Forum Romanum (Rene Seindal)
• Roman Museums, including links to images of some of the most famous artworks of antiquity.
• National Archaeological Museum of Naples
• Plan de Rome features images of a plaster model of Rome and virtual reconstructions of various buildings (University of Caen)
• Riley Collection of Roman Portraits features portraits of emperors and senators, as well as men, women and children during the height of the Roman empire: images, descriptions, family trees, additional links and more (Cedar Rapids Museum of Art).
• The Vatican Museums
• Vedute di Roma: beautiful photographs, plus 18th and 19th century drawings and engravings.
• Worlds of Roman Women (Ann Raia and Judith Sebesta)

Excavations, Projects, and Specific Sites

• Aquae Urbis Romae: The Water of the City of Rome is a cartographic history of 2800 years of water infrastructure and urban development in Rome (Katherine Wentworth Rinne)
• Capitolium.org, official website of the Roman imperial forums, contains a brief history of Rome, a description of the Forums area, life in antique Rome
• Christian Catacombs of Rome
• Digital Augustan Rome (David Gilman Romano) is based on the reearch done originally for the book Mapping Augustan Rome, but is envisioned as a living resource that continually adds new information. It includes maps at 1:6000 and 1:3000 that inlcude over 150 sites. Each site has a separate entry describing it during the time of Augustus.
• Digital Roman Forum a UCLA team created a digital model of the Roman Forum c. 400 CE; includes descriptions of the major monuments and 3D models of many of them.
• Lanciani's Forma Urbis Romae ( maps of the city of Rome from Rodolfo Lanciani's excavations, 1893-1901)
• Forum Romanum includes photos and descriptions of the major buildings in the Roman Forum (Rene Seindal)
• Great Buildings On-Line: Brief descriptions of major architectural achievements throughout the world. Click on Search and search by name of the city you are interested in.
• Homo Faber. Nature, Science and Technology in Ancient Pompeii. How did Romans measure time, build roads, make pottery? Find out here.
• Horace's Villa. A fantastic site that includes photographs, axonometric drawings, QuickTime movies of Horace's Villa in Licenza, plus descriptions of new excavations at the site sponsored by the American Academy in Rome and the Archaeological Superintendency for Lazio of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
• Imperial Fora Virtual Tour. Tour the fora built by Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and others (Capitolium.org)
• Obelisks in Rome
• Ostia: Harbour of Ancient Rome
• Pompeii: The Last Day Quiz (Discovery Channel). How much do you know about the eruption that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae?
• Pompeian Households: An On-Line Companion includes detailed documentary information on 30 Pompeian houses and their contents, consisting of 865 rooms and more than 16,000 artifacts.
• Pompeii Forum Project. See especially the section for students and teachers.
• Viewing Pompeii, walk-throughs, panoramas and other visual resources for the Pompeii Forum Project
• Pompeii Series of Podcasts (University of Cincinnati) cover the eruption of Vesuvius, tombs, human remains, Roman medicine, food, gladiators, and commerce
• Roman Bath, a companion Web site to the NOVA program "Roman Bath," scheduled for broadcast on February 22, 2000. In the film, an international crew of archeologists, engineers, and historians designs, builds, and tests a functioning Roman bath!
• Roman Building Technology and Architecture (Fikret Yegul)
• Roman Villa at Hechingen-Stein in Germany. Features a virtual tour through the villa!
• Rome Reborn: A Digital Model of Ancient Rome is developing 3D digital models illustrating urban development of Rome from 1000 BCE to 500 CE.
• San Clemente. A journey through time in one location: strata include the city mansion of Titus Flavius Clemens, Mystery cult of the Persian god Mithra, and three successive churches of San Clemente.
• Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project is digitizing fragments an ancient map of Rome in hopes of understanding the ancient city
• Trajan's Column contains several excellent essays The Emperor Trajan and his Forum, Experiencing Trajan's Column, and Carving Trajan's Column, a database of 500+ images of the column, and a link to the 1998-2000 excavations. (Stoa.org)

Good Books

• Claridge, Amanda. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. 2nd ed. Good tour book while in Rome.
• Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1929). For many years the standard reference work on the city of Rome. Though dated, still invaluable. If you can't find your monument at Lacus Curtius, all 600 pages available on-line at the Perseus Digital Library!
• Ramage, Nancy, and Andrew Ramage. Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine. Excellent, illustrated overview of Roman art and architecture.
• Stambaugh, John. The Ancient Roman City. A history of the ancient city of Rome, plus chapters on housing, Roman holidays, commerce, society, and Roman government, and more.
• David Watkin. The Roman Forum. Essentially a biography of the many-layered heart of ancient Rome, from antiquity to Piranesi to Mussolini.
• Paul Zanker, Roman Art. An up-todate overview of some of the major issues in considering ancient Rome's material culture.

Amphitheater, Pompeii

Photo credits: View of the Arch of Titus through the Arch of Septimius Severus, from the Capitoline Hill, courtesy of the Forum Group, VRoma Project

Relief sculpture of Italia/Tellus, Ara Pacis Augustae (13-9 BCE), courtesy of AICT, VRoma Project

exterior view of the amphitheater at Pompeii (ca. 80 BCE), courtesy of AICT, VRoma Project