The ‘Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia’ (PARP:PS) represents a collaborative effort (under the direction of Steven Ellis at the University of Michigan and Gary Devore at Stanford University) to recover the complete structural and social development of an important yet largely forgotten corner of Pompeii. Through a series of selective excavations, structural analyses, and geophysical surveys, PARP:PS is producing a complete archaeological analysis and assessment of the shops, workshops, inns, and houses at VIII.7.1-15 and the Porta Stabia.

This region has much potential for enlightening Pompeian and Roman studies. All of the buildings fronted onto the Via Stabiana, the primary cardo of the city, just inside one of the busiest gates into the city, the Porta Stabia. The southern zone was built against the city fortifications, while the rear (western) and northern limits confront, respectively, the Quadriporticus and Odeon of the so-called ‘Entertainment District’. The Project aims to unravel the sequence of building programmes for these properties, and to reveal something of the complex relationships between public and private space in the Roman city. Apart from understanding the developing relationships of this unique neighbourhood, and given the predilection of recent Pompeian excavations to focus almost solely on élite housing, our interests have included the recovery of a more complete Pompeian record through the excavation of several modest and non atrium style habitations.

The first two seasons (2005 and 2006) of the Project have produced some promising and exciting results, with the maze of walls and spaces beginning to take shape. Early results from the excavations, combined with our architectural analyses, ceramic studies and investigations of the biological remains are conspiring toward a picture of social opportunism at play in this city block, with certain households and businesses profiteering and gobbling up the land of their less economically successful neighbours.