Ancient History and Archaeology.com

Its been a long time since my last post, I know. But not without good reason.

I now have two more Pompeii guides out on RAMA: ‘Civic Pompeii ‘and ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’.

As with the first tour ‘Discovering Pompeii’, the guides aim to tell a story about the life of the ancient city. Each landmark or ‘waypoint’ acts as a focal point to illustrate an episode from that story.

‘Civic Pompeii’ takes the visitor on a journey through the history of Pompeii, focusing on its temples, theatres and forums. It begins and ends with the intriguing triangular forum. This spur of volcanic rock overlooks the central area of Pompeii. In itself, it represents the changing fortunes-and character of a city that began Oscan and ended Roman. It was the city’s earliest sacred centre, before becoming the focal point of the town’s ‘entertainment zone’. By the end of Pompeii’s, life it was the equivalent of a public park.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jacobson of the ‘Pompeii VRL project’ for his permission to use the excellent 3D reconstructions of the triangular forum.

 Additional thanks to William Gunn Glennhouse for allowing me to use his image of a replica Roman basilica.

‘Pompeii’s last Days speaks for itself. The tour takes the visitor through the destruction of Pompeii, using waypoints which represent key stages in the eruption of Vesuvius-and the effect they had on the city.

This tour was a real challenge to write because I had to find waypoints which ran sequentially and fitted into the narrative of the eruption, which I constructed using the latest theories on the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. There was so much material to choose from; I had to be really selective.

‘Pompeii’s last Days’ was probably my favorite of the Pompeii tours to write. I think this is because I was using the archaeology to tell the story of what is ultimately a human tragedy. At times, it felt quite emotional. This is largely due to so much of the narrative being focused on the human remains from Pompeii.

I’ve written about the plaster casts of Vesuvius’s Roman victims before in my article ‘Human Remains in Pompeii’. The way they preserve a semblance of the people of Pompeii-even in some cases down to details of their clothing and facial expressions- is one of the miracles of the eruption. But it also reminds us that these aren’t simple artifacts-they are people like us. The one that touched me the most is in the child in the picture below. This little boy or girl died suddenly in the early hours of their last day, along with their parents as they tried to escape the building they had been sheltering in.

I suppose ultimately, ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’ reminded me that the city isn’t just a remarkable and fascinating window into the ancient world. It’s the site of a natural disaster.

Currently, RAMA tours are only available on Ipad or IPod. But RAMA is extending the App into android this February. It’s also going to be tweaked so that it can be read offline. This means that the tours can be enjoyed as an interactive themed guide for the many towns and cities they cover and as a historical e-resource.

I certainly hope that as well as providing compelling guides to the city, readers of my Pompeii guides will find them useful historical/archaeological resources for this fascinating city. As well as good stories too.

My first historical travel tour is out now. 'Discovering Pompeii' takes visitors on a journey down the Via dell Abbondanza, one of Pompeii’s main streets, allowing them to experience the day to day life of the Campanian town before its destruction by Vesuvius in 79AD.

Gardens, gladiators, graffiti and politics are all features of the app, as is roman nightlife, an inner city winery and a high class leisure centre. You’ll discovers the homes and businesses of every social class, which gods the Pompeian’s worshipped and what they believed. Find out how the city was supplied with water and why exactly were stepping stones necessary to cross the road.

You’ll also meet some of the people who lived and worked along the Via. There’s Julius Polybius, politician and family man, Asellina, tavern owner and potential madame and Paquius Proculus, the nouveau riche chief magistrate.

Published by Crimson Bamboo as part of the RAMA travel app and produced by Past Preservers, the tour makes a great guided tour if you are visiting Pompeii. I hope it’s a useful resource for Pompeii even if you are not. At the very least, I hope readers find it as much fun to read as it was to write. It’s packed with illustrative pictures, maps and plans. My thanks go to Peter Clements of  '79AD’ website for permission to use some of his house plans designed using Mainstreet GIS.

The tour is available for use on Ipad and IPhone and costs $2.99. See the RAMA Facebook page for details. Or visit  http://bit.ly/iTunesRama.

To find out more about becoming a Rama author, please write to info@pastpreservers.com.

There's a new addition to the 'Archaeology in Practice' catagory-an article about Experimental Archaeology.

Without giving too much away (read the article!), experimental archaeology is all about experiencing the past through recreation. Its a key way for archaeologists to learn how things worked or were made in the past as well as useful for helping them understand excavated features.

But experimental archaeology is also a great way for amateur archaeologists and history lovers to have a hands on experience of the past themselves. For instance, why not have a go at flint knapping or another ancient craft? Search the web and you'll be sure to find a workshop in your vicinity.

Worth a look  is the recently constructed replica of a roman House at Wroxeter Roman town in the UK. The house, which was reconstructed by modern builders using Roman methods was a real eye opener into the labour and skill involved in Roman building. Its also shown that houses in Britain at least needed regular repairs, probably because of the weather!

Other articles under Archaeology in Practice include Archaeology and kids, Archaeological Fieldwork, Archaeological Excavation Techniques, Underwater Archaeology, Human Bone Analysis, Forensic Archaeology,  Volunteer Archaeology, and Metal Detectors and Archaeology

Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead:

British Museum 4 November 2010-6 March 2011

£12 admission-children free

There's a chance to see rare examples of the Book of the Dead, the Egyptian handbook to surviving the afterlife at the British Museum. Many of the linen and papyrus spells have not been seen before and may not be seen again for some time due to their fragile state. So its well worth a journey if you are keen on the mystical side of Egyptian life.

Special features of the exhibition include an introductory film and a family multimedia guide for young Egyptologists as well as hands on activities such as scarab badge making.

After months of playing, I have finally finished updating the site. Enough said. I hope the final result speaks for itself.

I'm more than happy to receive feedback on the new site and i'm not looking for idle praise. I want Ancient History and Archaeology.com to serve a useful purpose to anyone interested in the subjects and looking for information on the web. So any suggestions for further  improvements will be gratefully received.

Having said that, unless anyone does pipe up, I am now finished with fiddling until I move the 'Travel' section to the new purpose designed website I am currently working on.

I've decided to completely revamp the website. So from this moment onwards, please be aware that it is a work in progress. I anticipate that the job will be complete in a couple of weeks.

 This is something I've been meaning to do for a while but kept putting off because I never had the time. Then it came to me that I never would have the time if I didn't make it myself.

So I’ve put a couple of projects on the backburner. Hopefully the completely new site will be finished in a couple of weeks.

 I have to say thanks to my fellow writers at Suite101 for their critically constructive comments on the site. I asked if some of them would take a look at it and give me some feedback. They did and they certainly didn’t spare me. But I’m grateful for that (besides which, I’m in the wrong job if I can’t take criticism on the chin)

All their comments were fair, constructive and bang on and they have sparked off all sorts of ideas about what I could do with the site.

As you can see, I've made a start with a clean new format. I’ve also added a contact page. Over the next week or so, the page titles and their arrangement will completely change. At the moment, I’m redesigning the look of the pages and re writing the content. Fingers crossed the finished article will be more informative, interesting and give members and casual browsers a better idea of what I do and what I am about.

I’d certainly welcome any constructive feedback anyone else would like to pass on. So don’t hold back!

Just to let anyone interested know-I am no longer associated with Flying Witch Publications so they should not be contacted if anyone wishes to buy any of my booklets from them.

 If anyone is interested in the booklets, please contact me via the site. Please ignore the link on Amazon. 

Why has the association ended? Well, its a long story and not all mine to tell. But everything happens for a reason and I say cautiously at the moment that it is a good thing. Suffice to say, new and better things are afoot. Watch out for further details.

Right, its out on the suite101 website so I can now announce it here-I'm the veteran writer winner of the latest Suite101 challenge.

 Very pleased, mainly because I met the challenge requirements of 15 articles in 15 days. It was a great exercise in organising myself and making the most of my Marcus- free time.

I'm also very happy with the articles In wrote. I predominantly write archaeology articles for the site but I made sure I included some in different areas. I've recently completed a course in baby massage which I can recommend to anyone for calming a fractious baby. This prompted two baby related articles: baby aromatheraphy and baby massage.

I also included two travel articles based on my experiences travelling about the Tunisian sahara (pre Marcus of course!). The sahara really is a breathtaking place and there is so much to experience. My articles explore the beautiful oasis towns, such as Tozeur and also the traditional Berber way of life at the heart of the desert. 

Welcome to my blog! Now I finally have the time, hope to keep this relatively up to date with any news about forthcoming projects and new work.

At the moment I'm waiting for the birth of my first baby but I'm keeping busy, which involves some heavy front loading of suite101 articles to tide me over the inital baby moon period. Recent articles look at Etruscan history, art and archaeology and the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall

In the past,  I've submitted quite a few articles based on archaeological sites I've visited to Suite. If you are interested in Middle Eastern Archaeology and in particlular anything Roman related, look out for my latest pieces on the city of Palmyra. The articles (plus some of my pictures) will be looking at what makes Palmyra such a special and inspiring place to visit. It may look like a Roman city but a closer look at the archaeology shows its residents remained proudly semitic.

And if the baby doesn't arrive first, I'm hoping to start a new series of articles on classical myths and the potential inspiration behind them.

Finally, I'm hoping to be selling my Roman pamphlets directly from the website very soon. So watch this space.