The Oplontis Project: Excavation, Study, and Publication of Villa A at Torre Annunziata, Italy, 50 BCE-CE 79

FAIN: RZ-50941-08

University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)
John Clarke (Project Director: November 2007 to February 2011)

Analysis, mapping, interpretation, and preparation for publication of archaeological finds at the Roman villa of Oplontis, including a digital reconstruction of the building. (18 months)
eBook available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb90048.0001.001

The Oplontis Project, a collaboration between the University of Texas at Austin and the Archaeological Superintendency of Pompeii, has as its goal the study and definitive publication of the largest and best-preserved villa excavated in the area buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. It is an international, interdisciplinary project aimed at understanding the villa's history in relation to its owners and inhabitants through stratigraphic excavation, chronological tools (analysis of masonry, pavements, and frescoes), and digital modeling. It will provide a multi-authored monograph on the villa and its finds; a complete digital archive of records, photographs, and previous scholarship all linked to a navigable virtual computer model of the existing state of the site; and a meticulously-researched hypothetical reconstruction of the villa and its contents. The model will be the first to permit research with avatars, testing the social and functional uses of the villa's spaces.

Associated Products

Villa A (“of Poppaea”) at Torre Annunziata, Italy (50 B.C.-A.D. 79). Volume 1: The Ancient Setting and Modern Rediscovery (Book)
Title: Villa A (“of Poppaea”) at Torre Annunziata, Italy (50 B.C.-A.D. 79). Volume 1: The Ancient Setting and Modern Rediscovery
Author: Elaine K. Gazda
Author: Lorenzo Fergola
Author: Vincenzo Marasco
Author: Giovanni di Maio
Author: John R. Clarke
Author: Kathryn Gleason
Author: Massimo Ricciardi
Author: Gaetano Di Pasquale
Author: Daniela Moser
Author: Emilia Allevato
Author: Oliver Nelle
Author: Elda Russo Ermolli
Author: Erwan Messager
Editor: Nayla K. Muntasser
Editor: John R. Clarke
Abstract: New scientific and historical studies provide a full context for understanding this celebrated luxury Villa, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Geo-archaeological work (di Maio) establishes the original site of the Villa, perched atop a 14-meter cliff with its own port; studies of the ancient wood (Di Pasquale et al.), pollen (Ermolli et al.), and representations of plants and animals (Ricciardi) provide information about ancient flora and fauna. Garden excavations (Gleason) tell us how the owner enhanced the natural setting. Historical studies frame Villa A within the genre of the Roman luxury villa (Gazda), track all archaeological discoveries in the area of Torre Annunziata from the Renaissance through the present (Fergola, Marasco), and reconstruct the history of the excavations of Villa A (1839-1988, Clarke). The volume is heavily illustrated with many unpublished archival photographs and drawings.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb90048.0001.001
Primary URL Description: ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is an online collection of nearly 4,700 books of high quality in the humanities, accessible through institutional and individual subscription. HEB is available to entire campus communities. Using any web browser, faculty, students, staff and library patrons of subscribing institutions can view and search the HEB collection from campus offices, libraries, dorms and remotely when off-campus. An institutional subscription to HEB includes unlimited, simultaneous multi-user access from any Internet-connected location. http://www.humanitiesebook.org/about-us/description.html
Access Model: Ebook; Open Access
Publisher: The Humanities E-Book Series of the American Council of Learned Societies
Type: Multi-author monograph
ISBN: 978159740
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii (Exhibition)
Title: Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii
Curator: Elaine K. Gazda
Curator: John R. Clarke
Abstract: This major international loan exhibition showcases sculpture, frescoes, jewelry, coins, and objects of everyday life from two Villas at Torre Annunziata, Italy, currently under study by the Oplontis Project: www.oplontisproject.org. Organized by The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, it travels to The Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University and to the Art Museum of Smith College. Dates: 10 February 2016-31 August 2017. It is accompanied by a comprehensive fully-illustrated catalogue: Elaine K. Gazda and John R. Clarke, eds. Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii (Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 2016):http://www.worldcat.org/title/leisure-and-luxury-in-the-age-of-nero-the-villas-of-oplontis-near-pompeii/oclc/944085988&referer=brief_res
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http:///www.worldcat.org/title/leisure-and-luxury-in-the-age-of-nero-the-villas-of-oplontis-near-pompeii/oclc/944085988&referer=brief_res

Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii (Catalog)
Title: Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero: The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii
Author: Elaine K. Gazda
Author: John R. Clarke
Author: Nayla Kabazi Muntasser
Author: Giovanni Di Maio
Author: Ivo van der Graaff
Author: Michael L. Thomas
Author: Regina Gee
Author: Bettina Bergmann
Author: Lynley J. McAlpine
Author: Simon J. Barker
Author: J. Clayton Fant
Author: Matthew C. Naglak
Author: Sandra R. Joshel
Author: Lauren Hackworth Petersen
Author: Jennifer L. Muslin
Author: Courtney A. Ward
Abstract: This scholarly catalogue includes 17 chapters written by scholar specialists under four rubrics: 1) Destruction, Discovery, Reconstruction; 2) Leisure and Luxury in Villa A ("of Poppaea"); 3) Commerce and Wealth; 4) Objects in the Exhibition. Objects include: marble sculpture, both monumental and small-scale; frescoes of the Second, Third, and Fourth Pompeian styles (50 BCE-79 CE); gold and silver coins; jewelry found on the 54 skeletons from Villa B; numerous objects of daily life in bronze, silver, and terracotta.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http:///www.worldcat.org/title/leisure-and-luxury-in-the-age-of-nero-the-villas-of-oplontis-near-pompeii/oclc/944085988&referer=brief_res
Primary URL Description: WorldCat
Catalog Type: Exhibition Catalog
Publisher: The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

The Oplontis Project Database (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: The Oplontis Project Database
Author: John R. Clarke
Author: Andrew Coulson
Author: Nayla Kabazi Muntasser
Abstract: Andrew Coulson initially designed the Oplontis Project database in 2009 and has refined it as we continue to build data for both Villa A and Oplontis B. It consists of a rich user interface provided by a Java web application and leverages MySQL relational database as the metadata information store. Both the web application and the database are currently hosted on an Amazon Web Services server instance. The web application stores photographs and documents uploaded by Project members in a permanent iRODS collection hosted on the Corral storage system at the Texas Advanced Computer Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The entire set of metadata is periodically exported from the database to the XML and is also stored in the iRODS collection.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://www.oplontisproject.org:8080/Oplontis/
Primary URL Description: web-based; also accessible directly from interactive 3D model
Access Model: open acces

The Oplontis Project (Web Resource)
Title: The Oplontis Project
Author: Graham Kunze
Author: Michael L. Thomas
Author: John R. Clarke
Abstract: The Oplontis Project website is the first entrance for many users to the ongoing work, since 2006, to study, excavate, and publish the archaeological sites of Villa A and Oplontis B, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and based in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Major funders have included the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Leverhulme Foundation (UK), the University of Texas at Austin, and private Texas donors. The website offers a link to the Open Access, born-digital publications of the Oplontis Project as well as a comprehensive bibliography of publications and presentations of research.
Year: 2008
Primary URL: http://www.oplontisproject.org

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