Schedule
The 2008 staff
Director: Elizabeth Fentress, Co-Directors: Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Sandra Gatti
Associate Directors: Ann Kuttner, Brian Rose
Field Directors: Casale: Marco Maiuro (June) and Ali Ait Kaci (July) Monastery: Caroline Goodson
Supervisors: A: I: Andrea Di Michele; II: Janine Young (June) and Dirk Booms (July); III: Federica Romiti; IV: Raffaele Laino.
BI: Corisande Fenwick, BII: Megan McNamee
C: No excavation this year
D: Serena Priviterra and Ryan Ricciardi
Assistant Supervisors: AI: Ismini Milariesis (June) and Darian Totten (July); II: Seth Barnard; III Monica Hellstrom; IV Candace Varden; BI: Claudia Asper and BII: Karen Heslin
GIS: Andy Dufton
Physical Anthropology: Kathryn Gruspier
Conservation : Tarik Moujoud
Finds: Karen Heslin and Candace Varden
Objects: Ann Kuttner
Paleobotany: Kev Williams
This schedule may need to be adjusted if June or July is particularly hot. We will take a vote to decide to move the schedule one hour earlier if need be. In July we will start at 6:00 and lunch at home.
Sunday night, Day 1:
1800 Introduction to Villa Magna and the project at the Oasi
2000 Dinner
Monday, Day 2 – Friday, Day 6:
0630 Breakfast Rota team begins making coffee, laying out breakfast, making lunch
0700 Breakfast
0800 Departure from Oasi. You should have everything for the day:
Your dig kit (trowel, gloves, etc.)
Your boots
Your hat
Your personal water, at least 1 1⁄2 litres. There is no water on site.
Anything that is your responsibility to bring (documentation, level, your area merenda, tools, lunch, etc.)
1000 Merenda (Snack) in your area
1200 Lunch
1300 Resume work
1550 Pack up
1600 Depart site, return to Oasi
1620 Free time
1730 Laboratory work
1900 Happy Hour
2000 Dinner
Saturday, Day 7: as above, EXCEPT
1100 Site visits, when each area presents and discusses to the rest of the project
1200 Depart site, return to Oasi, lunch at Oasi
After lunch, Free time. No dinner will be prepared that night.
Sunday, Day 8:
2000 Dinner
Week Two is the same as the previous week, though on the 2nd Friday of the dig, we will have a short day (Saturday Schedule) and everyone will be off Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday until 1800. It will be possible to stay in the Oasi, but also possible to travel independently.
Week Three is the same as Week One, Week Four is the same as Week Two (with a Clean up/Close up on Friday, Dig party on Friday night, and clean up of the Oasi on Saturday morning.
Rota of activities
Everyone will be responsible for participating in the finds and data management of the dig, and the daily operation of the project. These roles will be assigned, on a rotating basis, when you arrive.
Excavation activities:
Survey, Total Station:
Andy Finds:
Karen & Candace Data:
Andy Cemetery Supervisor: Cori
Working with Andy on the survey of the site, trenches and finds, digitising plans into GIS. Washing pottery, classifying it, and labeling it with SU data. Cataloging objects and pottery. Regular data entry of SU schede into ARK.
Excavating in the cemetery trench: there will be a weekly rota
Classifying skeletal material in the afternoons.
Living activities:
Cleaning rota: Supervisors: ______ & _______ Food rota: a 24hour duty (twice a Session)
Supervisors: ______ & _______
Daily rota
Ensuring there are cleaning products available for daily cleaning and letting the shoppers know what is missing.
Ensuring that there is toilet paper in each bathroom.
Cleaning the bathrooms. Preparing breakfast:
Preparing: on the morning, you start making coffee, lay out the table for breakfast, with milk, coffee, juice, yoghurt, fruit etc.
Everyone washes up after him/herself, but it is your job to clean up the rest of the stuff on the table after breakfast.
Preparing lunch: Pack it into the cars, and unload it from cars to Granaio OUTOF REACH OF DOGS. Set up lunch for 12:00
Cleaning up after lunch. Return thermal boxes to Oasi and unpack them, ice packs in fridge.
Laying the table for dinner. Helping the cooks with serving it.
Cleaning up after dinner.
There are also Long term responsibilities designated to one or two people over the entire Session. If you are not on site for some reason, please delegate someone else to do it for you.
Level supervisor: Brings the optical level, tripod, and equipment each day to site, leaves it in the Granaio. Collects it at the end of the day, leaves it in the lower room of the Oasi
Total Station supervisor: Brings the Total Station, tripod, and reflector each day to site, leaves it in the Granaio. Collects it at the end of the day, leaves it in the lower room of the Oasi.
Merenda supervisors (one for each area): Prepares the Merenda (snack) for the area each morning, packing coffee in Thermos, bringing sugar, cups, biscuits, trail mix and fruit and bringing it to site, PLACING IT OUT OF REACH OF DOGS. Bring home the garbage and the Thermoses in the afternoon, wash them out and getting rid of garbage.
Water people (one for each area): Makes certain that the large plastic tanks of water are filled each with fresh water each day and that they are loaded onto the truck and taken to site, and taken out of the truck.
Barman: Collects Booze kitty money, buys supplies, and makes them available at Happy Hour and Dinner.
Learning Villa Magna
Group Workshops
The season opens with a walk-through of the site, and closes with on-site trench reports by the field supervisors and trench supervisors.
Each Monday night, a ca. 60-minute seminar will be held in workshop form, with presentation and group discussion. Ann Kuttner will lead a few of the Monday seminars, setting the Roman-era villa, as we now know it after the 2006 & 7 seasons, in its historical and cultural context, and reporting on the state of finds to date, including the analysis and conservation of the sculptural remains recovered so far. (The most important include the remains of a Hercules-Amazon combat, a late Roman portrait, and a late Roman sarcophagus). As Finds Manager, she will give at least one scheduled hands-on presentation of our finds, coordinated to each of the one-month seasons. For viewing on personal computers, Powerpoints will be pre-distributed before each of this year’s seminars meet, as will be occasional other texts to discuss in seminar; do look them over in advance of the talks. Other contributors will be Fentress, Maiuro and Goodson, speaking in particular on the site’s ancient and medieval history, inscriptions, brick-stamps, and medieval archival documents.
Learning more:
Participants are encouraged before and during the dig to have a look at the photographic documentation to date and other materials in the Documents section of our web site, and review the field reports of 2006 & 7. There will be a list of comparative web urls of interest for browsing, especially those maintained by other villa and house excavations.
We keep a small library in the dighouse, that participants are invited to browse.
Participants will observe that many finds are laid out outside and inside the dig house; all are strongly encouraged to look over periodically what we are bringing up from all the sectors(without shifting them!). It’s good to know the variety in what’s surfacing both inside and outside your own trench.
Contributing Resources
Images: Many participants create their own photographic records in the course of the dig. We have begun to archive these records for the pleasure and instruction of all. How to do this will be discussed at the onset of the dig. The excavation is committed to share knowledge, and create interest in archaeology in a broad public. It is lovely if team members’ own personal sites help that, and we hope those who do so will post the urls for the site’s own informational web. Additionally, participants who photograph materials elsewhere that they think others would find interesting comparanda to our work are encouraged to post on the journal section of our website, www.villa-magna.org.
Readings: Many participants themselves pursue related scholarship. Those who have collected pdf essays they think would make interesting readings are encouraged to come forward with those, as well to chip in notice of web sites they have found which can be interesting for our villa’s comparative study.
Student work: Student participants have as of 2008 undertaken to present Villa Magna material to their home institution and elsewhere in seminars and student colloquia. This is a fine idea. However, archaeologists know it is a delicate matter to share with a wider public work data and interpretation their sites before publication. Always ask formal permission of Fentress about what can be shared and how, and with what instruction to audiences about not circulating data further on their own account.
Possible other field trips:
Gabii, excavations of the university of Roma2
Arcinazzo, Tivoli and one or two other famous fancy villas in region
Pompeii and the bay of Naples
Terracina and Montecassino
Palace/ villa/ hortus at Rome: Villa dei Quintilii on the Via Appia; Palace of Maxentius excavations; House under SS Giovanni & Paolo; Palazzo Massimo museum, the reconstructed villa/palace rooms 1st c BCE-4th c. CE; Capitoline Museums & ACEA
Segni (with an excellent museum) and Ferentino: nearby Hernician towns.
Monastery of S. Sebastiano, Alatri
Ann Kuttner will be off site in Rome 4-5 days weekly working on villa research and other projects. Especially when those involve special visiting permits, she will make an effort to bring interested participants who go to Rome on weekends. Those who plan on their Rome visits to tour Roman sites and art galleries are very welcome to see if she is free to come along and discuss with them as desired!