As part of the research project on Insula 5 in the Regio V a final excavation campaign opened a trench of circa 2 × 3 m in the south-west corner of the garden of the House of the Gladiator. The aim was to further define the reconstruction of the garden layout and planting at the moment of the eruption in 79A.D. and identify any earlier phases of planting.

Despite substantial modern disturbance, it was possible to identify a small portion of the garden dating to the final phase of the house’s occupation. Below the garden there was a level of Roman fill obliterating the remains of a cobble paving belonging to a house of Samnite date (another section of the same floor had previously come to light during the 2008-2009 excavations).

A small trench (circa 1.5 × 1.5 m) was opened in the vicolo west of the house, where, in correspondence with its rear entrance, the Archaic (6th century B.C.) ground surface was seen to emerge. The trench aimed to further investigate below the Archaic surface in order to clarify the stratigraphy of the area in the prehistoric and proto-historic periods. A complex geo-archaeological sequence was identified with occupation levels dating to the Eneolithic period and the Bronze Age, as had emerged in trenches excavated in the garden in 2008-2009.

Along side the limited excavations work continued on the finds, with the cataloguing and photography of the pottery from trenches 1 and 3.