Il progetto ‘Casa della Regina Carolina’ (Pompei, VIII.3.14-15): alla ricerca del giardino antico (e non solo)

The ‘Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii’, a collaborative project sponsored by the Universities of Bologna, Cornell, and Harvard, documents the domus VIII.3.14-15 and excavates its garden to explore the ways that Roman domestic gardens shaped the everyday experiences of the people who lived and worked within them. Despite the garden’s uncovering in the early 19th century and its various uses in modern times, the project was able to identify many archaeological features associated with the garden buried by the AD 79 eruption, such as root cavities and planting pots/pits. Excavations also revealed that in an earlier phase two, or possibly three, houses occupied the area where, after the earthquake of AD 62, the garden was created. Our multidisciplinary research at this site is enabling us to reconstruct human-plant interactions and document specific horticultural practices; to redraw the boundaries of the ‘Casa della Regina Carolina’, which was connected in antiquity to the adjacent building VIII.3.15; to reconsider the range of activities that took place in the combined dwelling space of VIII.3.14-15; and to study the evolution of the entire neighbourhood from the Samnite to the Roman period.