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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 5 December 1792

At the end of 1792, Taylor wrote to tell Arcedeckne about his fear at the prospect of an end to the slave trade. The Jamaican assembly had produced a report, laying out their opposition to abolition and emphasising the economic value of the current slave system to the mother country. Such economic arguments were an important part of the proslavery defence of the slave trade, but as this letter also shows, constitutional arguments and claims about property rights were also important. Continue reading →

Discovery of massive building at Portus

Archaeologists from the University of Southampton and the British School at Rome working at Portus under the direction of Professor Simon Keay, working in conjunction with others from the Cooperativa Parsifal (Rome), have discovered a massive building at the maritime port of Imperial Rome, near Rome’s international airport which they believe may have played a role in shipbuilding centred at the port. Continue reading →

New excavation season has started

The fourth season of excavation at Portus takes place between late March and early May 2011. As in previous years these have been undertaken by the University of Southampton, in conjunction with the British School at Rome and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The area chosen for excavation lies to the south of areas excavated in previous years, but still within the confines of the Palazzo Imperiale. Continue reading →

Portus Project Achieves Next Stage in Funding from the AHRC

The AHRC have awarded three years of funding to continue and develop our work at Portus. The establishment of Portus, the maritime port of Imperial Rome, under Claudius and its enlargement Trajan, refocused Rome’s economic and social relationship with its Mediterranean provinces. It helped ensure the centrality and dominance of Roman power at the City of Rome for over 500 years down to the late antique period. Continue reading →

New discovery at Portus, the ancient port of Rome, features in the Daily Telegraph

Archaeologists from the University of Southampton, University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome, have discovered one of the largest canals every built by the Romans. They believe it linked Portus with the nearby Roman river port of Ostia. Read the Daily Telegraph article (11 July, 2010) The image shows an aerial view from Portus across the Fossa Traiana towards the Isola Sacra with Ostia in the far distance, an area that was crossed by the newly discovered canal. Continue reading →

Portus Project and the AHRC

The Portus Project is currently hitting the headlines of AHRC online and print publications. The Project featues on the home page of the AHRC website, as a podcast interview with Professor Simon Keay and Dr Graeme Earl. Portus is also prominent as a front page and feature in the latest issue of ‘Podium’, the AHRC magazine. Continue reading →

Portus featured on television

Members of the Portus Project are delighted by the extent and depth of coverage of the Project across a range of different media and in different countries. Furthermore we would like to emphasise that this is a collaborative venture between the University of Southampton, the British School at Rome, the University of Cambridge and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Ostia Antica, and to acknowledge the very generous funding provided by the Arts and Humantities Research Council. Continue reading →