"Pompeiian Gardens"

Recently Langgut was invited by an American expedition that conducts excavations in Pompeii, to apply the pollen-plaster technique that she developed several years ago (Langgut et al., 2013).

Langgut successfully applied this cutting-edge method to the garden of Villa Arianna (Langgut, 2022) and is currently applying it to Casa Del Regina Carolina (CRC). On July 2022 she participated in the CRC excavation at Pompeii and collected plaster samples aiming to provide a more detailed botanical reconstruction of the plant composition of the CRC garden.

The pollen-plaster technique has great potential specifically in Pompeii, since most of these ancient gardens have already been long-exposed or even destroyed. Furthermore, some of the Pompeiian gardens are ‘contaminated’ by pollen from recent flora that was planted by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

Through these projects, Langgut also studies horticulture trends (e.g., dwarfism of trees and importation of exotic plants) in elite Roman gardens (Langgut and Gleason, 2020; Langgut, 2022; The Times).

Partners:

Prof. Kathryn Gleason (a world-leading scholar in Roman gardens)

Dr. Caitlín Barrett (co-director of the CRC project).

Prof. Thomas Howe - Architectural and Art History