Living Together: Society and urbanism of an antique City of Italy. – VESUVIA

At a time when we reflect much on the issue of social cohesion, and on cultural and social transfers, our project aims to approach the study of «inhabitating modes« at Herculaneum. This roman city was very little studied in an archeological perspective and its degradation justifies the urgency of our project.
Led by an interdisciplinary team, this research program will work in stages, leadind to completion :
1 - A study of architectural structures and décors of the city of Herculaneum
2- The implementation of a GIS to analyze the diachronic evolution of the site and its occupation
3 - A protocol of analysis of “décors in context” in a socio-cultural perspective (knowledge of the social environment and its inhabitants)
4 - An enhancement of the heritage of Herculaneum and a lecture of domestical surroundings through 3D renditions of buildings.
5 – An examination of unhabiting logics (by gender, social class, age ...) and of their temporal and social effects

Vesuvia project is innovative in that it seeks to transcend traditional disciplinary compartimentalization by combining all available sources on an ancient site. The purpose is to produce a comprehensive analysis centered on ancient urban society, but also to be attentive to different readings and interpretations that have been rendered since the eighteenth century. So far, the study of the Roman people’s material cultures has been little exploited as a source within a socio-historical study, historians focusing generally on written sources. This primacy of literary and epigraphic documents could be countered, in Herculaneum, by the wealth of material source, which prove more numerous and more reliable than literary sources in particular, in regards to the study of domestic life. Though some attemps were made to exploit material cultures in the analysis of the Pompeii, they strangely enough chose to exclude any analysis of décors (murals, mosaics, sculpture), despite the amount of information provided by such living environment on the social status of the people, the occupation of space by individual inhabitants (by gender, social origin and place in the familia) and circulation within the house.

The VESUVIA project is also innovative in that it aims to use the tools and analytical frameworks of contemporary geographers and anthropologists so as to establish clear pattern of people-city interactions within an ancient society. It outlines the social mixity and «gendered« occupation of urban space. It also mobilizes the most cutting-edge technologies in terms of analysis of both techniques of ancient décor (with LRMH) and 3-D reconstructions (with Archéotransfert) in order to provide the public with a renewed and live vision of the ancient city Herculaneum, with a concern for the development and dissemination of scientific research.

Vesuvia allows many benefits, both in the scientific field, in the transmission of knowledge and on the Franco-Italian collaboration on the development of a socially and economically vulnerable territory. We shall also insist on the urgency of our program: the recent restoration efforts of the structures came too late, and many houses and wall paintings will probably soon be irremediably lost. Yet, there is no complete documentation of Herculaneum. The implementation of this project cannot be delayed
Scientific Production :
3D restitution of several houses with all archeological, historical and sociological datas
a GIS tool
an online database (DOMVS)
several monographies and articles

At a time when we reflect much on the issue of social cohesion, on the influence of architecture in lifestyles and on relationships between neighborhoods within large modern cities, our project aims to approach the study of "inhabitating modes" at the beginning of the Roman Empire. The first century of our era is indeed a pivotal moment in the process of redefining identities, thanks to the Roman conquest of a good part of the Mediterranean. The case of Herculaneum (in Southern Italy) is in this respect a "laboratory" to investigate. Since it disappeared during the eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 AD, which also buried Pompeii, this ancient city has been relatively spared from archaeological and historical studies in favor of its famous neighbor. To date, most of the buildings are still unseen and there is no recent general synthesis pertaining to the habitat and lifestyle of the Herculaneum society. However, the exceptional preservation of the archaeological site and the abundance of archival documentation would enable a systematic analysis of buildings, furniture and décors and sculptures, returnable within their original context : such data could feed a larger study on social sciences and history issues, while engaging the study of life, social fabric, as well as the specifics of Herculaneum compared to other Campanian cities, including Pompeii. Led by a European (France-Italy) and interdisciplinary team (archeology, archaeometry, ancient history, history of archeology, art history, anthropology), this research program will work in stages, leading to completion: 1 - A study of architectural structures and décors of the city of Herculaneum 2 - A protocol of analysis of “décors in context” in a socio-cultural perspective (knowledge of the social environment and its inhabitants) 3 - An enhancement of the heritage of Herculaneum and a lecture of domestical surroundings through 3D renditions of buildings. 4 - A reflection on the interactions and social mixity within ancient urban landscape.
Vesuvia project is innovative in that it seeks to transcend traditional disciplinary compartimentalization by combining all available sources on an ancient site. The purpose is to produce a comprehensive analysis centered on ancient urban society, but also to be attentive to different readings and interpretations that have been rendered since the eighteenth century. So far, the study of the Roman people’s material cultures has been little exploited as a source within a socio-historical study, historians focusing generally on written sources. This primacy of literary and epigraphic documents could be countered, in Herculaneum, by the wealth of material source, which prove more numerous and more reliable than literary sources in particular, in regards to the study of domestic life. Though some attemps were made to exploit material cultures in the analysis of the Pompeii, they strangely enough chose to exclude any analysis of décors (murals, mosaics, sculpture), despite the amount of information provided by such living environment on the social status of the people, the occupation of space by individual inhabitants (by gender, social origin and place in the familia) and circulation within the house.
The Vesuvia project is also innovative in that it aims to use the tools and analytical frameworks of contemporary geographers and anthropologists so as to establish clear pattern of people-city interactions within an ancient society. It outlines the social mixity and "gendered" occupation of urban space. It also mobilizes the most cutting-edge technologies in terms of analysis of both techniques of ancient décor (with LRMH) and 3-D reconstructions (with Archéotransfert) in order to provide the public with a renewed and live vision of the ancient city Herculaneum, with a concern for the development and dissemination of scientific research.