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Simon introduces the 2014 Portus Field School

The discussion of the Navalia and the nails relates to the following sections on the course: Building Five - a possible Navalia [Advanced] Nails and other metal artefacts from Building Five Reconstructing Building Five Use of Building Five Some examples of the "spheres" that Simon refers to are embedded below and also available on our Portus profile on Sphere. Continue reading →

Portus and Me

First time i came to Portus in 2008 and spent two months learning various technologies used in archaeological (high tech) excavation. Since then I've been back there every year, and I am writing this post from the Casale, overlooking the Grandi Magazzini Di Settimio Severo. My main reason to join the Southampton Archaeology MSc course in Archaeological Computing was to learn about the technologies to get the archaeology presented better to the wider public. Continue reading →

Build your own Portus

I’m very excited about the imagination shown in the comments on the Archaeology of Portus: exploring the lost harbour of ancient Rome course. But it is clear that even at this late stage it is still hard to get a sense of space. We’ve worked hard to film as much as possible of the MOOC content actually on-site at Portus last summer, and you can see where this footage was filmed. Hopefully this week will also help. Continue reading →

Simulating Roman Trade Patterns

I am a professional software developer and also studying for a PhD part time at the University of Southampton. My main interest at the moment is in the simulation of different routes connecting Portus to the other ports of the Mediterranean – topics discussed way back in Week One of the course e.g. in the Links to Other Ports step. My work uses a combination of computational approaches. Continue reading →

Race and bioarchaeology: what else can we do with human remains?

On the Archaeology of Portus course this week we've been looking at the People of Portus. Analysing human remains is an extremely delicate process, both practically and ethically. Archaeologists take any activities associated with human remains very seriously. It wasn't surprising that Andrew Dufton's post about the Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets course also included reference to these ethical issues. Continue reading →

Portus’ dirty little secrets

  Working with Sue Alcock and Müge Durusu at Brown University on the Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets (ADLS) course on the Coursera platform, and chairing a recent session with the ADLS team at the Annual Meeting of Computer Applications in Archaeology in Paris this past April, I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of institutions tackling the same issues we encountered during our MOOC adventure. Continue reading →

Who were the people who made the amphorae for Portus? The evidence from manufacturing techniques

An understanding of the manufacturing techniques and of the production sequence in terms of how pots are made provides us with an insight into the people making the ceramics. The clay, the raw material, is a plastic additive medium, allowing for traces of its manipulation by the potters, to be left in the finished ceramic product. Fashioning methods, or manufacturing techniques, used in creating a vessel are usually detectable. Continue reading →

Conservation and computational imaging technologies

I’m Eleni Kotoula, a PhD student in the Archaeological Computing Research Group, University of Southampton.  I am a conservator of antiquities and works of art and I have worked in practical conservation since 2004 in museums and cultural organizations in Greece. My conservation research is focused on non-destructive analysis of archaeological material and accelerating ageing of adhesives/ consolidants used in conservation. Continue reading →