Bringing Roman Light to Life

American Journal of Archaeology · 2024-06-11

Nuova luce da Pompei (New Light from Pompeii) explored the role of artificial light in the lives of ancient Romans. In addition to presenting 180 rarely seen bronzes from Pompeii, including lamps, candelabra, and elegant statues that held lamps, the exhibition demonstrated the effects and meanings these lighting devices generated. Clearly, Roman lamps have lost their agency, presented as objects in museums or in photographs—a problem addressed by encouraging visitors to handle replicas of lamps and to light them virtually. In a virtual reality recreation of the triclinium of the House of Polybius, visitors could use a torch to light lamps and see what they could reveal—or fail to reveal. Videos of elaborate lamps with figures standing on their oil holes were particularly noteworthy, demonstrating their potential for “shadow play.” In addition to plumbing the meanings of the astonishingly varied imagery, the show investigated bronze metallurgy and modern conservation, as well as the role lamps played in the convivium, cult, nighttime pursuits, and commerce. A section on the creation of pastiches and copies evoked the antiquarian culture sparked by the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In its Rome venue, curators added a roomful of rarely seen objects from Rome’s former Antiquarium Comunale.

Porosity and permeability variations in the Silurian Lockport Group and A-1 carbonate unit, southwestern Ontario

2023-01-01 · 3 citations

This is the first regional porosity/permeability study to incorporate petroleum industry laboratory core analyses submitted to the Ontario government and managed by Ontario's Oil Gas and Salt Resources Library. This study comprises 11,759 analyses for the Early Silurian Lockport Group of southwestern Ontario from 150 drill cores. The Lockport Group consists of a cyclic succession of dolostones and minor limestones comprising, in ascending order: Gasport, Goat Island, Eramosa, and Guelph formations. This stacked carbonate succession was deposited on an eastward-deepening carbonate ramp, extending from Michigan, through southwestern Ontario, to Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. It is overlain disconformably by restricted marine carbonates, evaporites and mixed shales of the Salina Group, whereas unconformably underlain by one of four formations that include, the Lions Head (a stratigraphic equivalent of part of the Rochester), DeCew, Rochester and Irondequoit. To ensure appropriate stratigraphic assignment of the laboratory test intervals, a quality assurance/quality control review on formational tops was carried out on the 150 cores that were tested. This regional subsurface work resulted in the reassignment of 846 formation tops that were verified by examination of drill core, drill cuttings, and geophysical well data including gamma-ray, neutron and density logs. Core analysis datasets have been validated by summarizing laboratory protocols and standards and reconciling data fields in the core analysis database with auxiliary data, including geophysical logs, thin sections, and core examinaion. This auxiliary data was then used to identify data outliers to update the core analysis database. The measurements of porosity and permeability were then assigned a formation rank plotted on a subregional scale. Average porosity and permeability values have been divided into statistical populations for each formation assigned by three depositional realms. The southwestern Ontario study area has been divided into three paleogeographic settings, based on distinctive lithofacies that correspond to different carbonate depositional regimes and regions of paleokarstification. From northwest to southeast, the lithofacies reflect an inner to outer carbonate ramp setting designated as area 1-3 from northwest to southeast. Area 1 is the inter-pinnacle karst region and includes some of thepinnacle structures within the Lockport Group. This region has the most significant paleokarstification of the upper Lockport Group (Guelph and Goat Island formations) and overlying Salina Group A-unit. Area 2 has rare pinnacle structures, where no porosity/permeability core analyses data are available. Area 3 is the middle to outer portion of the Lockport carbonate ramp, with local development of reef mound phases in the lower Goat Island and Gasport formations. The porosity and permeability variability corresponds with areal distribution of paleokarstification and resulting diagenetic phases in Area 1, and lithofacies variations and temporal/spatial history of karstification in Area 3. Higher porosity and permeability generally coincide with greater thicknesses of the oil and gas reservoir within pinnacles in Area 1 and reef mound phases of Lockport Group and lower Salina Group A-1 Carbonate in Area 3. Within inter-pinnacle karst regions in Area 1, average porosity for each formation is consistently high with little variations. In Area 3, a general increase of porosity and permeability towards the southeast corresponds with lithofacies ranging from restricted lagoonal/platform interior deposits to carbonate bank deposits with local development of reef mound phases in the Gasport and Goat Island formations. There has been significant erosion and karstification within and at the tops of these pinnacles, resulting in higher porosity and permeability of the Guelph and upper Goat Island formations, and the overlying Salina Group A-1 unit. Paleokarstic events have enhanced various porosity types, including intercrystalline, moldic, irregular and fenestral vugs, and cavities.

Representing the Cinaedus in Roman Visual Culture: Seeing, Speaking, Touching

2023-08-25 · 1 citations

This chapter re-examines a variety of probable visual representations of adult males who could be characterized as cinaedi. Medium, scale, probable viewership, and tactility all contributed to the visuality of the cinaedus in a variety of settings, from relatively public tavern and bath paintings to small objects that demanded intimate observation.

<i>Coupoles, voûtes et plafonds peints d’époque romaine: Ier–IVe siècle apr. J.-C.</i> By Alix Barbet. Paris: Éditions Hermann 2021. Pp. 350. €64. ISBN 9791037006806 (cloth).

American Journal of Archaeology · 2022

• Humanities
• Art
• Art history

The row houses at Oplontis

Journal of Roman Archaeology · 2020

• Computer Science
• Geography
• History

In the spectrum of the cities buried by Vesuvius, studies of humble dwellings have suffered from poor preservation, a lack of documentation and a general disinterest. Small commercial spaces frequented by non-élites, such as tabernae, thermopolia, cauponae, popinae and cenacula , remain difficult to identify as they often doubled as domestic spaces and Latin terminology does not always match the architectural remains. A few studies have focused on the place of such spaces within Roman architecture as well as on the economic rôles of tabernae and/or rental accommodations. 1 This paper expands on these approaches by offering the preliminary results of research at Oplontis B (Torre Annunziata) by the Oplontis Project, one of the few sites where a series of row houses sheds light on the domestic aspects of tabernae and their rôle in urban development along the Bay of Naples. 2

Book Review of Un-Roman Sex: Gender, Sexuality, and Lovemaking in the Roman Provinces and Frontiers, edited by Tatiana Ivleva and Rob Collins

American Journal of Archaeology · 2020

• Sociology
• Gender studies
• History

Book Review of The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society, by Sarah Levin-Richardson

American Journal of Archaeology · 2019-12-16

Re: Evaluation of regulator performance in polar diving - authors' response.

PubMed · 2019-06-17

Weapon System Virtualization and Continuous Capability Delivery for US Navy Combat Systems

Conference proceedings of EAAW · 2019-07-02 · 1 citations

The US Navy envisions a Fleet that applies advances from the technology sector to improve the delivery of warfighting capability. Due to constraints imposed by legacy hardware design inherent and the inherent limitations of x86 servers, significant inefficiencies exist in the hardware and software delivery process. The US Navy leveraged advancements in virtualization technology to field combat system software in virtual machines, effectively removing computing hardware as a capability limiter. Adoption of hardware-agnostic virtual machines also significantly reduced the delivery timeline for improved warfighting capabilities at a lower cost. This paper will review the evolutionary enhancements in AEGIS Combat System computing architecture and describe why it is critical for the Surface Navy to adopt a new capability delivery model. This paper also outlines the key engineering and testing advantages of the US Navy AEGIS Virtual Twin effort, which recently demonstrated continuous capability delivery to the Fleet. Finally, this paper will explore the multifactor framework of the Balanced Scorecard as a tool to align the benefits of virtualization and advances in computing technology with a new model for future US Navy Combat Systems.

The Building History and Aesthetics of the “Villa of Poppaea” At Torre Annunziata

Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2018-07-19 · 18 citations

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