| Formation | 2002 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
| Headquarters | Naples, Florida, United States |
| Leader | Darius Arya |
| Website | romanculture.org |
The American Institute For Roman Culture (AIRC) is a non-profit organization. The AIRC has classrooms in Naples, Florida, United States, and Rome, Italy, providing students education in Italian history and contemporary Italian culture.[ citation needed ]
The American Institute for Roman Culture was founded in 2002 by archaeologist Darius Arya and architect Tom Rankin. The organization is a non-profit 501(c)(3) founded in Massachusetts. In 2003, AIRC inaugurated its first project, the Post Aedem Castoris excavation in the Roman Forum led by Drs. Jennifer Trimble (Stanford University) [1] and Andrew Wilson (Oxford University). By its third and final season in 2005, AIRC students counted for 1/3 of the summer field school's participants.[ citation needed ]
The success of the collaboration led to two AIRC-organized, semester-long architecture programs with California Polytechnic State University [2] and Northeastern University. [3] From 2007 until 2011, AIRC hosted a semester-long classics program and "Maymester" program with the College of the Holy Cross. [4] Arya has served as AIRC's CEO/Executive Director since spring 2008, acting as principal fundraiser and liaison with the Italian Ministry of Culture. [5]
Ancient Rome Live (ARL) is AIRC’s documentary film division that showcasing the culture of Ancient Rome. [6] [7] ARL produces original documentary films of cultural heritage sites in English, with the objective of exposing these sites to a wider audience than accessible through only the Italian language. Production experience began after Arya's appearances in several documentaries featured on History Channel and National Geographic, including 2011 a video documentary course in Rome with Northeastern University students. [8]
In 2011, Fasti Online, the main digital database of active archeological excavations in Italy, invited AIRC to produce video documentaries of participating sites. [9] AIRC has filmed six documentaries at sites in Rome, including Palatine, Oppian Hill, Sant'Omobono, Gabii, San Marco, and Pompeii. More than 35 other active projects have since requested documentation by the AIRC.[ citation needed ]
The AIRC offers study abroad programs for university students and scholars.
Semester Signature Program - The AIRC offers a semester program that runs for 14 weeks with a one-week break, both in the fall and spring academic semesters. The program, entitled "History, Media, and Cultural Heritage", is open to university students and scholars from all majors, and consists of 3 core courses and a choice of 2 or 3 elective courses. [10]
The core courses are Rome: Layers of History, Discovering Italy, and Elementary Italian.
The AIRC has been a participant in the funding of the important conservation of frescoes of the Santa Maria Antiqua Church in the Forum Romanum for the past five years.
The AIRC provides English language content translation for the Italian Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate of Management and Promotion of Cultural Heritage. [26] This includes content for their social media platforms as well as the English-language version of the General Directorates' website. This partnership allows AIRC access to cultural heritage sites under the management and jurisdiction of the Italian Ministry of Culture, which helps AIRC to further its mission.[ citation needed ]
In 2011 the AIRC launched the "Unlisted" Conference. [10] The conference is held each year in the spring, generally in March or April, for two days. Each participant presents and then submits an academic paper for the proceedings. [ citation needed ]
The AIRC has been the recipient of numerous grants including an NEH grant, American Express Foundation grant for the Villa delle Vignacce excavation, [27] World Monument Fund (WMF) [28] collaboration for Santa Maria project, anonymous angel grants, numerous donations from supporters in California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, West Virginia and Georgia.[ citation needed ]
Ostia Antica was an ancient Roman city and the port of Rome located at the mouth of the Tiber. It is near modern Ostia, 25 kilometres southwest of Rome. Due to silting and the invasion of sand, the site now lies 3 km (2 mi) from the sea. The name Ostia derives from Latin os 'mouth'.
Andrea Carandini is an Italian professor of archaeology specialising in ancient Rome. Among his many excavations is the villa of Settefinestre.
Portus was a large artificial harbour of Ancient Rome. Sited on the north bank of the north mouth of the Tiber, on the Tyrrhenian coast, it was established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia.
Giovanni Becatti was an Italian Classical art historian and archaeologist.
Mario Torelli was an Italian scholar of Italic archaeology and the culture of the Etruscans. He taught at the University of Perugia.
Opus sectile is a form of pietra dura popularized in the ancient and medieval Roman world where materials were cut and inlaid into walls and floors to make a picture or pattern. Common materials were marble, mother of pearl, and glass. The materials were cut in thin pieces, polished, then trimmed further according to a chosen pattern. Unlike tessellated mosaic techniques, where the placement of very small uniformly sized pieces forms a picture, opus sectile pieces are much larger and can be shaped to define large parts of the design.
Ostia Antica is the 35th zona of Rome, Italy, four kilometers away from the coast. It is identified by the initials Z. XXXV and it is distinct from Ostia. Ostia Antica belongs to Municipio X.
Ostia is a large neighbourhood in the Municipio X of the comune of Rome, Italy, near the ancient port of Rome, which is now a major archaeological site known as Ostia Antica. Ostia is also the only municipio or district of Rome on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and many Romans spend the summer holidays there.
Villa delle Vignacce, or the "Villa of the Vineyards", was one of the largest in the southern suburbs of ancient Rome, located on via Lemonia, in the Parco degli Acquedotti, or Aqueduct Park. Constructed in the 2nd century AD, and showing signs of restoration in the 4th century, it still remains one of Rome’s lesser documented villas, despite the extensive ruins being available in Rome’s largest public park.
The Villa of the Quintilii is a monumental ancient Roman villa beyond the fifth milestone along the Via Appia Antica just outside the traditional boundaries of Rome, Italy. It was built by the rich and cultured Quintilii brothers Sextus Quintilius Valerius Maximus and Sextus Quintilius Condianus.
L. Michael White is an American Biblical scholar. He is Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins, and director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author or co-author of seven books, editor of four volumes and collected essays, and author of twenty-six articles. In 2011, White won the University of Texas' Robert W. Hamilton Book Award, a $10,000 prize, for his newest book Scripting Jesus (2010). White also won the same award in 2006 for his book From Jesus to Christianity. In addition, White is Project Director of the Ostia Synagogue Area Excavations, "Ostia Synagogue Masonry Analysis Project" or OSMAP, an archaeological field project to reevaluate the area around the ancient synagogue of Ostia Antica, the port city of ancient Rome. The Ostia Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in Europe, and is thought to be one of the oldest in the world.
Akrai was a Greek colony of Magna Graecia founded in Sicily by the Syracusans in 663 BC. It was located near the modern Palazzolo Acreide.
The culture of Rome in Italy refers to the arts, high culture, language, religion, politics, libraries, cuisine, architecture and fashion in Rome, Italy. Rome was supposedly founded in 753 BC and ever since has been the capital of the Roman Empire, one of the main centres of Christianity, the home of the Roman Catholic Church and the seat of the Italian Republic. Due to its historical and social importance, Rome has been nicknamed the Caput Mundi, or "capital of the world".
Porta Metronia is a gate in the third-century Aurelian Walls of Rome, Italy. The gate is located in the southern section of the wall between Porta San Giovanni to the east and Porta Latina to the south.
The Museo Archeologico Ostiense is an archaeological museum dedicated to the ancient Roman city of Ostia in Rome, Italy.
Robert Ross Holloway was an American archaeologist, founder with Rolf Winkes of the Center for Classical Art and Archaeology at Brown University, and the Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus of Brown University, where he taught from 1964 to his retirement in 2006.
The preservation and extensive excavations at Ostia Antica have brought to light 26 different bath complexes in the town. These range from large public baths, such as the Forum Baths, to smaller most likely private ones such as the small baths. It is unclear from the evidence if there was a fee charged or if they were free. Baths in Ostia would have served both a hygienic and a social function like in many other parts of the Roman world. Bath construction increased after an aqueduct was built for Ostia in the early Julio-Claudian Period. Many of the baths follow simple row arrangements, with one room following the next, due to the density of buildings in Ostia. Only a few, like the Forum Baths or the Baths of the Swimmers, had the space to include palestra. Archaeologist name the bathhouses from features preserved for example the inscription of Buticoso in building I, XIV, 8 lead to the name Bath of Buticosus or the mosaic of Neptune in building II, IV, 2 lead to the Baths of Neptune. The baths in Ostia follow the standard numbering convention by archaeologists, who divided the town into five regions, numbered I to V, and then identified the individual blocks and buildings as follows: (region) I, (block) I, (building) 1.
Porticus Aemilia was a portico in ancient Rome. It was one of the largest commercial structures of its time and functioned as a storehouse and distribution center for goods entering the city via the Tiber river.
Raissa Samojlovna Calza was a Ukrainian dancer who became a prominent classical archaeologist of Roman portraiture. When she was young, she fled to Italy and France following the Russian Revolution.
Maria Floriani Squarciapino (1917-2003) was an Italian classical archaeologist and professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, known for her work on the Roman port city of Ostia.