Herculaneum
Pompeii
Ancient Graffiti
Welcome to The Ancient Graffiti Project, a digital resource for
locating and studying handwritten inscriptions of the early Roman
empire. These ancient messages and sketches offer a window into
the daily life and interests of the people who lived in the
ancient world, especially in Herculaneum and Pompeii. They provide
perspectives on Roman society, the ancient economy, religion,
spoken language, literacy, and activities within the ancient city.
(N.B. The word "graffiti" was originally a
technical term for ancient handwritten wall-inscriptions that were
scratched into wall plaster. The term later came to mean any
writing on a wall.)
Welcome
The aim of AGP is to allow scholars and the public to explore ancient handwritten wall-inscriptions and to understand them in context. We have designed AGP to be a user-friendly resource. We provide maps to help viewers understand where graffiti appeared in the ancient city and we offer our own translations and brief summaries of the graffiti. Try out the maps above, browse around, or begin a
We hope you enjoy exploring the Ancient Graffiti Project and learning more about the ancient world!
Scholarly Editions
The inscriptions presented here are our critical editions of the
ancient texts, many of which offer updates to the Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum. We provide information on how to cite
our editions in each entry. We have compiled up-to-date
bibliography, a critical apparatus, and links to further
information, and we include photographs from our fieldwork as well
as the enhanced photographs and line-drawings we have created in
order to accurately represent the inscriptions and make them
legible to modern viewers.
We are pleased to
contribute our editions to the
Epigraphic Database Roma and EAGLE, the Europeana
network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy. For linked open data
and teaching materials, please see the Resources menu above.