In 2009 the Via Consolare Project continued to uncover a great deal of important information on the southern side of Insula VII 6 and the development and excavation history of the Villa delle Colonne a mosaico. Between the 24th of June and the 4th of August 2009, with the permission of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Napoli e Pompei and with the ongoing support of Professore Guzzo and dottore D’Ambrosio, the members of the Via Consolare Project expanded the test trench from 2008 to produce more details on the final occupation phases of the shop and tabernae at Insula VII 6, 26-27.

This produced further information on the precise condition of these shops at the time of the eruption and revealed evidence of an apparently comprehensive programme of restoration and refurbishment that seems to have been in progress during the last days of the city’s life. Excavation revealed a system of channels and holes conceivably intended to provide an extensive new drainage system, which were interrupted by the AD 79 eruption itself. The resolution of the data was so precise that it is possible to restore not only the disposition of the individual diggers, but also the locations of their soil heaps. This provides an important window onto not only the condition of this particular part of the city at that moment, but also provides further evidence on the types of building activities which were underway during the seventeen years between the earthquake of AD 62 and the eruption. Especially significant is that the large-scale nature of these changes not only would have influenced the potential use of the Vico dei Soprastanti but might easily be characterised as ‘municipal’ in scale. Furthermore, this provides new information on the manner in which Roman/Pompeian builders conceptualised and executed individual work projects. These results therefore tie directly into our expressed research goals and reveal much of the nature of urban development along the course of the Via Consolare. At the moment, the southern side of Insula VII 6 has yet to produce comparable traces of especially early chronology such as revealed by Dott. Ribera, in Insula VII 4, so further excavation in this area will be necessary in the future to explain this absence.

Our excavations in the Villa delle Colonne a mosaico revealed important and poorly published information on the precise disposition of early ‘Samnite-Oscan’ graves uncovered in the pre-war campaigns of A. Maiuri in the viridarium and sacellum of the Villa. Though no ancient material was still extent in the majority of these areas, the information we uncovered is nevertheless extremely valuable both to the study of early burial practices but also in regards to the pre-existing alignments in the area, especially as they related to the original construction of the Villa. The second trench excavated in the Villa delle Colonne a mosaico was even more productive. Here, the area of Maiuri’s previous excavations were quickly identified and removed, revealing a number of primary earthen deposits relating to the final uses of the Villa and its spatial disposition. Such preservation is especially remarkable given the number of years during which the Villa has been exposed since its original excavation and the extent of subsequent plant growth.

During the 2009 season the Via Consolare Project also continued to refine our recording and documentation methodology so as to be able to integrate fully all types of archaeological data into a 3-D spatial database. Primary topographic survey was completed in Insula VII 6 including important underground portions of the cisterns of the Terme del Foro and its access corridors and also continued in the Villa delle Colonne a mosaico including the viridarium and sacellum. In both areas, wall sequence analysis continued as in previous years and several groups of walls that were studied in 2007 and 2008 were brought together into broad, overall phasing sequences, providing a guideline for future cleaning and stratigraphic excavation. These intensive studies were followed by complete photo documentation via stitched-rectified photography – a method that was presented earlier this year at an important international conference on computer applications in archaeology (CAA 2009) (cf. Anderson, M. 2010).

Overall, investigations conducted by the Via Consolare Project have provided significant data to the understanding of the sequence and history of the development of the city of Pompeii as well as the social, environmental, and ecological framework through which this development took place. The results of our 2009 field season emphasize especially the importance of continued archaeological research in Insula VII 6 and the area of the Villa delle Colonne a mosaico, and the value of the data they yet preserve.