Recovered in 1755 during excavations in the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, the prosciutto sundial is the earliest known portable Roman sundial. Palm-sized and in the shape of an Italian cured ham, its silver-plated cast bronze form cleverly combines an accurate modelling of a prosciutto with a relatively sophisticated scientific device capable of capturing the seasonal hours of the zodiacal year by employing the pig's tail to cast the sun's shadow onto the dial. This book explores the significance of this curious object's discovery in the Villa dei Papiri and offers the first comprehensive survey of its reception and analysis by drawing on contemporary correspondence and manuscripts, travel journals, popular accounts, archaeological studies, and scientific and horological assessments. Christopher Parslow shows how the prosciutto sundial is a rare example of an ancient artifact that has attracted the attention of a very broad audience, from archaeologists, art historians, and
This 1995 book examines the early history of the excavations at three important sites of classical antiquity, which came to light in 1738 through the life and work of Karl Jakob Weber, who supervised these investigations from 1750 to 1765. While many of his contemporaries sought only the recovery of precious antiquities to the exclusion of the architectural remains, Weber sought to retrieve evidence of the ancient urban fabric and to relate his discoveries to their archaeological context, thereby establishing the first systematic approach for the excavations. He also proposed a revolutionary manner for publishing his findings, in which all of the works of art from an individual site would appear together with detailed plans, drawings, and commentary drawn from classical and modern sources. His methods were to influence all subsequent publications of contemporary rediscoveries throughout Europe. Based on original excavation documents and plans, contemporary correspondence and the extant
