Support the Ancient Graffiti Project

Partnering — AFoH and Ancient Graffiti Project

Insults, innuendo, imprecations. Elections, endearments, erotica. The graffiti of Herculaneum offer all this and more.

Herculaneum was one of the towns buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Amid the destruction, some amazing things survived, including hundreds of graffiti, written on walls, columns, statue bases—anywhere a surface offered. This was social media, Roman style. These inscriptions contain a fabulous wealth of information about ancient life.

The Ancient Graffiti Project ( www.ancientgraffiti.org ) aims to collect all the graffiti from Herculaneum and Pompeii and publish them online. A lot of them are being published by us for the first time, and all are being digitised and given up-to-date information to make them fully usable. We’ve made great progress so far but need your help to do more.

One of the great features of our Project is the way that students are involved as active researchers and equal partners in gathering and processing the data. They receive training in all the latest archaeological technologies. They’re the next generation, and this is terrific experience for them. By helping us now, you also help the future of archaeology.

We want to go to Herculaneum again in the summer of 2018. An international team of archaeologists and students will spend two weeks gathering data. The campaign aims to cover their costs. The more money we raise, the more students and staff can go, and the more graffiti we’ll gather. It’s as simple as that!

The campaign is sponsored by the Friends of Herculaneum Society in the UK ( herculaneum.ox.ac.uk ) and the American Friends of Herculaneum in the USA (AFoH) ( herculaneumfriends.org ), both registered charities which exist to promote education and research at the World Heritage Site of Herculaneum. If you want to support Herculaneum on an ongoing basis, why not think about joining either the UK or US Friends of Herculaneum?

As a kick-off to the campaign the Friends of Herculaneum are putting up £5,000 of match-funding. For every £ or $ you give, they'll match it up to £5,000. Help us turn that £5,000 into £10,000!