Eric Poehler

University of Massachusetts Amherst, Classics, Faculty Member

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I'm a Roman Archaeologist focused mainly on Pompeii. I am fascinated by the complex, interlocking and interdependent systems of urban infrastructure, including both their physical and administrative armatures. Pompeii provides that rare, nearly unique, opportunity to examine substantially complete infrastructural systems. Additionally, I'm interested in the study of ancient architecture and in the development of efficient and flexible methodologies for such study, particularly using cutting-edge information technologies.

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Books by Eric Poehler

Pompeii: Art, Industry and Infrastructure (Oxbow, 2011)

by Miko Flohr, Eric Poehler, and Kevin Cole

More than 250 years after its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academi... more More than 250 years after its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academic discourse and the popular imagination. This volume brings together a collection of ten papers that advance, challenge and revise the present conceptions of the city's art, industry and infrastructure.

The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture. The famous cupid's frieze from the house of the Vettii is given a novel and intelligent reinterpretation. The place of industry at Pompeii, in both the physical and economic landscapes has long been overlooked. The chapters on building practice in inhabited houses, on the presence of fulling workshops in atrium houses, and on the urban pottery industry serve as successful contributions to a more complete understanding of the life of the ancient city.

Finally, this volume breaks new ground in the consideration of the urban infrastructure of Pompeii, a topic that has won serious attention only in the last decades, but one that is playing an increasingly central role in Pompeian studies. The final three chapters offer a reassessment of the Pompeian street network, a scientific analysis of the amount of lead in Pompeian drinking water, and a thorough analysis of the water infrastructure around the forum that supported its architectural transformation in the last decades before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. 200p, 99 illus. (Oxbow Books 2011)

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The Traffic Systems of Pompeii (Forthcoming 2017, Oxford University Press)

The Traffic System of Pompeii is the first sustained examination of the evidence for a regulated ... more The Traffic System of Pompeii is the first sustained examination of the evidence for a regulated circulation of wheeled traffic at Pompeii. The physical architecture of the street and the street network's development from the archaic age to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE provide the setting to this system and are given particular attention. Thus, the evolving form of the urban grid, the shape of the street, treatment of its surface, and the individual elements of construction -curbstones, stepping-stones, and guard stones -are described in detail both to enrich the image of life in the Pompeian street and to better understand the evidence for traffic that was inscribed there. Ruts are the most evocative evidence of ancient traffic and their formation through the combination of ancient vehicle design and the styles of street paving require careful scrutiny. Above all, it is the evidence discovered by the author on the vertical faces of street features that permits the determination of the direction that ancient carts were traveling and undergirds the argument for a system regulating their movements. Through the distillation of over five hundred observations in multiple categories of evidence, all wholly new to archaeology and unique to this research, the basic rules of the road are revealed.

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Poehler, E., M. Flohr, and K. Cole (eds.), Pompeii: Art, Industry and Infrastructure. (Oxford: Oxbow Books). 2011

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Papers by Eric Poehler

Digital Technologies and the Transformation of Archaeological Labor

Heritage

The use of computers and other digital technologies have had a long history in classical archaeol... more The use of computers and other digital technologies have had a long history in classical archaeology, but in the last decade, advances in software and especially hardware have begun to transform the way that archaeologists work in the field. This paper explores three examples of this phenomenon from my perspective as co-director, director, or assistant director of three different research projects between 2010 and 2019. These are the Pompeii Quadriporticus Project (2010–2013), the Pompeii Artistic Landscape Project (PALP, 2018–present), and the Tharros Archaeological Research Project (TARP, 2019–present). As a whole, these projects trace one history of digital technology’s impact on the organization of archaeological labor, from intensifying work due to increased efficiency, to increasing the pressure due to newly available data sources, and to reorganizing the in-field procedures that at once takes advantage of efficiencies and frees up labor at the trench edge.

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VEHICLES IN LITERATURE - (J.) Hudson The Rhetoric of Roman Transportation. Vehicles in Latin Literature. Pp. xvi + 353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Cased, £75, US$99.99. ISBN: 978-1-108-48176-2

The Classical Review

ASPECTS OF GREEK AND ROMAN PAINTING - (M.-C.) Beaulieu, (V.) Toillon (edd.) Greek and Roman Painting and the Digital Humanities. Pp. xii + 191, figs, ills. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Cased, £120, US$150. ISBN: 978-0-367-54701-1

The Classical Review

Traffic, Urban

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics

The movement of people, animals, and vehicles through the ancient urban environment had a signifi... more The movement of people, animals, and vehicles through the ancient urban environment had a significant impact on the shape of ancient cities, but as an object of study, urban traffic is a relatively recent area of interest, one that has tended to focus on the Roman world. The range of methods available to consider the topic, however, are relatively many, including literary analysis, archaeological field survey, and a battery of technical methods, such as Space Syntax, Network Analysis, and Agent-Based Modeling. In all of these approaches, two models of movement—pedestrian and vehicular—remain paramount. The results of studying urban traffic have shed new light on the impact of different forms of urban design, the ways in which ancient people navigated those designs, and norms and formal systems in place in urban environments to order the movement of people and vehicles.

The viú Púmpaiianú and the Kaílú of Jupiter Meilichios

Etruscan and Italic Studies, 2022

In 1851 excavators working at the Porta Stabia in Pompeii recovered the so-called Road Maker’s Ta... more In 1851 excavators working at the Porta Stabia in Pompeii recovered the so-called Road Maker’s Tablet, an inscription mentioning how two aediles had supervised road work in the Oscan city. The find proved remarkable because it provided the Oscan names of three streets, the viú Púmpaiianú, the via Jovis, and the Dekkviarim, and mentioned a sanctuary to Jupiter Meilichios as an associated landmark. Successive generations of scholars have since proposed varying interpretations as to which of the Pompeian streets featured these appellatives and have attempted to locate the sanctuary either inside the city, at the site of the (now identified) Temple of Asclepius, or immediately south of Pompeii at the Fondo Iozzino. Using a combination of epigraphic and art historical approaches, as well as an analysis of the latest archaeological evidence, this paper proposes a new interpretation, locating the sanctuary north of the city outside of the Porta Vesuvio.

1.7. Digital Pompeii: Dissolving the Fieldwork-Library Research Divide

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Tracing procession routes for the principal cults in Pompeii

Open Arts Journal, 2021

Pompeii preserves vivid representations of religious processions in frescoes painted on the Shop ... more Pompeii preserves vivid representations of religious processions in frescoes painted on the Shop of the Carpenter's Procession and in the House of the Wedding of Hercules. Announcements for gladiatorial games as well as a funerary relief recovered from the necropolis at the Stabian gate attest to the presence of processions associated with festivities in the Amphitheatre and the Forum. A further inscription placed inside the Stabian gate describes a Via Pumpaiiana, presumably named for its role as a possible processional route (Greek pompé, procession). These glimpses into processional events suggest that vibrant displays were common in Pompeii, yet the routes that such processions took remain virtually unknown. Using evidence from inscriptions, visual culture, spatial analysis, and Roman religious traditions, this chapter is a preliminary attempt to gather the evidence for processional routes related to the principal cults in Pompeii. From this evidence, it proposes to chart a few tentative routes taken by public religious processions.

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Book Review of Bombing Pompeii: World Heritage and Military Necessity, by Nigel Pollard

American Journal of Archaeology, 2021

HHpXRF study of recent zinc and lead pollution on lava stepping stones from Pompeii: Tourist footfall, tyre dust and leaded petrol

Archaeometry, 2020

A helium-enabled Niton X-ray analyser (HHpXRF) study of 296 lava stepping stones from ancient Pom... more A helium-enabled Niton X-ray analyser (HHpXRF) study of 296 lava stepping stones from ancient Pompeii showed that their surfaces were contaminated with superficial deposits of Zn and Pb. Recent research has shown that concentrations of these elements are highest in urban areas, where they were attributed to tyre dust and leaded petrol, respectively. The distribution of these elements on the stepping stones is represented on maps of the site. Zn pollution is most abundant in areas visited by tourists and is attributed mostly to wear from their rubber-soled footwear. Pb pollution is attributed to the movement of onsite vehicles using leaded petrol.

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Paving Pompeii: The Archaeology of Stone-Paved Streets

American Journal of Archaeology, 2018

Careful survey of Pompeii's lava-stone pavements reveals a complex history of their origin, t... more Careful survey of Pompeii's lava-stone pavements reveals a complex history of their origin, their repair, and the municipal administration that oversaw them. Our paper first examines two processes that inform our survey's methodology: the laying of a stone pavement and the subsequent patterns of wear that degraded it. We describe the five forms of evidence from Pompeii's streets that resulted from these processes and allow for the identification of individual sections of paving. Using both relative and absolute chronological evidence, we order these sections of paving into eight phases of development. Finally, a detailed analysis of the frequency and extent of these individual paving events sheds light on a pavement's expected life-span as well as implications for the administrative and financial upkeep required to maintain a street network.

R. OPITZ, M. MOGETTA and N. TERRENATO (EDS), A MID-REPUBLICAN HOUSE FROM GABII. University of Michigan, 2016. Online resource. DOI: 10.3998/mpub.9231782. isbn9780472999002. US$150.00

Journal of Roman Studies, 2018

no detectable relation whatsoever with Euboean ceramics. Without radiocarbon dates as a control m... more no detectable relation whatsoever with Euboean ceramics. Without radiocarbon dates as a control mechanism, this phase cannot be dated so precisely. In addition, there are now enough calibrated radiocarbon results around 800 B.C. for central Italy to show that the spectacular developments characterising Early Iron Age II emerged some decades before the arrival of any Euboeans. It is only in Narce Phase 2A (770-750 B.C.) that a single Euboean-cycladic import (and one local imitation in the form of a skyphoid cup) appears among many locally produced ceramics and some impasto rosso vessels. These three issues should be seen as reections, rather than a critique of T.'s work. Concerning Narce, I fully support his nal remarks emphasising the predominantly conservative, local character of its material culture, as well as the variety in funerary customs recorded. This range is the more remarkable when comparing these burial grounds to those of other centres in the vicinity. Each of them seems to select slightly different rituals to entomb the departed. A one-to-one resemblance with sites such as Veii or Crustumerium is not feasible. The search in each settlement for identity markers in the funerary ceremonies, be it as family or clan, is noteworthy, and is probably related to the mixed population groups that made up these thriving communities. Thanks to T.'s detailed publication we can add Narce during the eighth and early seventh century B.C. to the small number of sites in this region that is well published. This is a ne achievement, and it is a pity that Fabrizio Serra have chosen to price the volume (€1,485.00) beyond the capacities even of most research libraries.

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The Iron Streets of Pompeii

American Journal of Archaeology, 2019

In July 2014, we conducted a survey of Pompeii's street network to document traces of iron th... more In July 2014, we conducted a survey of Pompeii's street network to document traces of iron that were observed on the stone-paved streets, which resulted in the identification of 434 instances of solid iron and iron staining among the paving stones. This paper describes the iron deposits, categorizing them into six observable types, and argues that, in the final days and weeks before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., Pompeians were—in addition to using solid iron wedges—pouring molten iron and iron slag onto their streets as a method of emergency repair. Before discussing the evidence available for how the melting, transporting, and depositing of these ferric materials might have been accomplished, we address whether the Romans had the technical ability to achieve sufficiently high temperatures to melt iron, finding much evidence to affirm the claim that they did. Finally, we consider why Pompeians undertook such measures to repair their streets. Recent research on the costs of paving stone streets in terms of time, money, and opportunity provides the economic context for this novel repair process and shows the use of iron and iron slag to have been an expedient alternative.

The drainage system at Pompeii: mechanisms, operation and design

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2012

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Book Review of Chariots and Other Wheeled Vehicles in Italy Before the Roman Empire

American Journal of Archaeology, 2015

Book Review of Roman Toilets: Their Archaeology and Cultural History

American Journal of Archaeology, 2012

Integrating Legacy Data into a New Method for Studying Architecture: A case study from Isthmia, Greece

Internet Archaeology, 2008

This article outlines a new methodology developed to disentangle the hitherto incomprehensible ma... more This article outlines a new methodology developed to disentangle the hitherto incomprehensible maze of poorly preserved architecture at the Archaic through late Roman period Panhellenic sanctuary at Isthmia, Greece, into clearly defined buildings with their relative construction phases. The methodology combines on-site architectural analyses with the digitisation and reintegration of the site's legacy data within a GIS. The results of this study, still in its preliminary stages, reveal an area east of the Temple of Poseidon at Isthmia as a built environment of rather large and complex units in contrast to the conventional interpretation of a series of small and unimportant structures.

Measuring the Movement Economy: A Network Analysis of Pompeii

Even if our own approach to things is necessarily conditioned by the view that things have no mea... more Even if our own approach to things is necessarily conditioned by the view that things have no meanings apart from those that human transactions, attributions, and motivations endow them with, the anthropological problem is that this formal truth does not illuminate the concrete, historical circulation of things. For that we have to follow the things themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories. It is only through analysis of these trajectories that we can interpret the human transactions and calculations that enliven things. Thus, even though from a theoretical point of view human actors encode things with significance, from a methodological point of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social context. 1 1 Appadurai (1986: 5).

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