Season Team

• AIAC_3765 - Pompei, Republican Baths (VIII 5, 36) - 2016
  Building on the work carried out in September 2015, the autumn field season of the research project “Bathing Culture and the Development of Urban Space: Case Study Pompeii”, running within the research framework of the TOPOI Excellence Cluster 264 of the German Research Foundation (DFG), saw renewed excavations in the Republican Baths (VIII 5, 36). During a four-week season, most of the remaining accessible parts of the Republican Baths were excavated, wherever possible to natural levels. In addition, two trenches excavated by Maiuri in the adjacent Casa delle Pareti Rosse were reopened and, for the first time, documented in full. In total 17, trenches were excavated across the Republican Baths and in the neighboring property. Parallel to this work, the survey of standing remains and phasing of walls were completed. The geo-referenced detailed ground plan was completed and all major walls documented by photogrammetry. Key parts of the site, including the well, were documented digitally by means of structure from motion modelling and the water management and use patterns of the baths studied in detail. Pending analysis of the excavated materials, it is now possible to understand the development and history of use of the plot at VIII 5, 36 from c. 7000 BC to the end of Pompeii as fully as the site allows. In additional, several functional aspects of the baths, changes in their construction and use of the site as a private building in the 1st century AD are now understood in more detail: While the stratigraphic sequence could be traced back to the Mercato eruption of Vesuvius, the earliest traces of human activity, in the shape of isolated sherds, date back to the Bronze age. More regular use of the area can be traced to the Iron Age, for which occupation evidence in the form of isolated postholes and a hearth could be identified. Before the mid-2nd century BC, the site was used for some form of industrial activity as indicated by several water features and dumps of fuel ash. The baths themselves were not constructed until the middle or latter half of the 2nd century BC and underwent several modifications until there abandonment and demolition in the late 1st century BC. The area then became part of the Casa della Calce and was used as a garden surrounded by porticoes and rooms. In the last period of use, probably post-dating the earthquake of AD 62, several large quarry pits were dug across the site, some of which were refilled with building waste once they were no longer used.
• AIAC_3766 - Stabian Baths (VII 1, 8) - 2016
  In the second year of the research Project “Bathing Culture and the Development of Urban Space: Case Study Pompeii”, part of the research framework of the TOPOI Excellence Cluster 264, a field season of excavation and standing remains assessment was carried out in the Stabian Baths (VII 1,8) in March, 2016. Three main areas of the Stabian Baths were excavated down to natural soil deposits as far as possible. Detailed study of the cells N1 and N2 as well as room S in the northern tract of the building (Area I) provided new information not only on the early phases of the Stabian Baths themselves, but the development of this part of Pompeii in general. In two open area excavations in the palaestra of the Stabian Baths (Areas II and III), it was possible to reevaluate the relationship between the baths and an earlier house that existed in the western part of the site. These areas furthermore provided new data on the urban development of archaic Pompeii and potential Altstadt-fortifications in this area. Cleaning and a first assessment of the central praefurnium and boiler construction of the baths (Room VI, here: Area IV) provided new data on the heating system, which are to be investigated further in future field seasons. All excavated areas were recorded both by traditional means and digitally through structure from motion modelling. Accompanying the excavation, a full standing remains assessment of all accessible walls in the Stabian Baths was carried out using standardized record sheets, and all occurring decoration forms were mapped. Based on an analysis of this data, in combination with the excavation results, it is now possible to revise the developmental model of the Stabian Baths proposed by Hans Eschebach in 1979. The 2016 season of work in the Stabian Baths led to a significant revision of current understanding of this part of Pompeii: there is no evidence for an Altstadt wall or ditch in the area. Indeed, the plot appears to have been an open space, at least in its southern part, in the Archaic period and up to the 3rd century BC. There is no evidence whatsoever for a palaestra with Greek-style baths of the 5th-3rd century BC, as proposed by Hans Eschebach. The earliest bath building did not develop before the late 2nd century BC, as did the house in the SW corner of the insula. These earliest baths largely followed the layout of the complex as seen today and developed in four main developmental phases. A first remodeling of the baths occurred shortly after 80 BC, and two further major phases of remodeling in the early and later 1st century AD.