The Written Report
The written portion of an oral report is meant
to provide background and the sources for your oral report. In other
words, the written report should focus on the facts: the history
of the site, who commisioned it, what materials were used. It is not
meant to be a written version of the oral report. It may be in the form
of lecture notes or a fairly detailed outline. It should be no longer than 2 pages typed (unless you need to include plans). The written portion should
include:
- Plan(s) of the site (only if the textbook does not have a good
one)
- History of the site: when was it first founded, significant
events, when was the site abandoned?
- Excavation history: who excavated and when? under whose auspices
(e.g. American Academy, Italians, French, Germans, etc.)
- Highlights: what are the most significant structures, art,
etc., at the site, and very briefly, why are they significant?
Measurements (if available), building materials, details about decoration
should be included.
- Bibliography:
Part I: Primary Excavation Reports
Part II: Secondary Literature on the topic
This bibliography is meant to be as inclusive as possible so
that you or others could use it for further research. Place an asterisk
(*) next to each item that you consulted for your report. Please consult
the MLA stylesheet, Turabian, or the format recommended in AJA
95 (1991) 1-16. Please note at the top which you are using.
For excavation history and further bibliography, the best
places to look first are E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome
(Hacker 1980), L. Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary of Rome
(1992), Princeton
Encyclopedia of Classical Sites and Lacus
Curtius. See the bibliography page for
more print resources. See the Trip home page
for more web resources.
Some common abbreviations
of English-language journals (cf. AJA 95 [1991] 1-16 for a more
complete list, including foreign periodicals):
-
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
-
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt
-
Arch Archaeology
-
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology
-
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
-
MAAR Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome
-
PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome
-
SIMA Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology
The Oral Report
The oral portion of the report should take about
20 minutes. It may in fact take longer since we will be walking around
the site and there will be questions. It will include all the relevant
information from your written report plus an interpretation of
the monument: how does it speak to Romans who saw it? Here are some
questions you will want to discuss:
1. What is the plan of the site? What is the internal
arrangement of the monument? How does one room or section relate to
another?
2. What evidence can be used in securing a date and
identifying the builder of the monument (coins, pottery, architecture,
inscriptions, literary evidence)?
3. With what materials was the monument built? What
decoration adorned the monument? What sort of finds (if any) were found
at the site that may help identify the monument's function or purpose?
For questions 4-5, think of the monuments you are studying
as almost living beings that can speak to other monuments nearby and
the people who view them through the language of its architectural style,
sculptural decoration, and inscriptions.
4. Why is the monument's location important? How does
it relate to other monuments nearby? If the site includes more than
one building, how do the different buildings interact and respond to
each other? Is there anything (architectural, sculptural, social, political)
that unifies the buildings on the site?
5. Why was the monument built? What does the style,
architecture, and decoration say about its builder? What effect did
it have on people who saw it? How do people from different social classes
or different genders view the monument? Does it make a political, moral,
religious, or social statement? For whom does it make this statement?
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