RESEARCH IN POMPEII
The work of the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii since 1994 has made Insula VI, 1 the best understood block in the ancient city. The block shows the whole range of rich and poor in Pompeii. It contains the House of the Vestals, one of the city's largest and most lavishly decorated houses. Next door is the House of the Surgeon, famous for the discovery of a collection of Roman medical instruments. Alongside were the workshops, bars and crowded apartments of the poor. Research has discovered new insights about the whole fabric of urban life - fountains and drains, food and waste, baths and blacksmithing - as well as the changing complexities of social and economic inequality over 5 centuries.
These discoveries have been made by employing the full range of techniques offered by modern scientific archaeology. Because this part of the city was uncovered in the first phase of the rediscovery of Pompeii, the block also reveals the effects on the archaeological remains of exposure for more than two hundred years. Some of the fine frescoes and mosaics have been preserved in museums. Those left in place are now poorly preserved, but were often recorded in drawings and watercolours in the eighteenth century. The insula tells the story of both what was there in antiquity and what happens without adequate conservation.
The Anglo-American Project in Pompeii is based in the Department of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford. The fieldwork has supported itself financially by running an international Field School, providing high quality education to a new generation of international archaeologists. So far the team has attracted members from more than 30 countries, and the annual field team numbers over 100 staff and students. Work on the remainder of the insula will be completed in 2006. The income from students' fees over the projected total of 12 seasons will amount to about £1m ($1.5m) contribution to field research. Now we seek to contribute to the site's future. We want the structures we have studied to survive for new generations of visitors and scholars.
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