A. Visits to Herculaneum
The Society’s members are offered a special opportunity to travel to Herculaneum every two years where they enjoy behind-the-scenes tours and talks by experts involved in the current education, research and conservation projects at the site.
B. Visits to other institutions
Members also visit other institutions and organisations with related programmes, such as the Museum of London, the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre, Silchester and Reading Museum, and the Roman Baths in Bath Spa, in each case with behind-the-scenes access.
C. AGM
Each autumn (October or November), the Society holds its AGM. Besides the business meeting, this is an occasion for a social evening as well as presentations from notable scholars. A double-bill in 2023 showcased our trustee Annalisa Marzano speaking about her ongoing excavation in Pompeii (‘Excavating a Roman Garden: the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii’, available on YouTube ) and Dr John Hanson, University of Oxford, on ‘Models of Demography at Herculaneum and Pompeii’. In 2022 Dr Amin Benaissa (University of Oxford) restored long-overdue recognition to Britain’s first woman papyrologist with a talk on Mary Elizabeth Decker. The year before we heard two fascinating papers on archaeological aspects of the site: Professor Estelle Lazer (University of Sydney) on ‘Preserved in Ash: Victims of a Mass Disaster’, followed by Dr Erica Rowan (Royal Holloway College, London), on ‘Diet and Daily Life in Herculaneum: The Finds from the Cardo V Sewer’. In 2020 the Society organised a half-day online conference on ‘Recent Research in Imaging and Archaeological Science’, featuring Mr Nigel Wilson (University of Oxford and Friends of Herculaneum), Dr Silvia Soncin (York University), Dr Ira Rabin (Berlin), and Prof. Brent Seales (University of Kentucky). Other recent AGMs welcomed Dr Paul Roberts (2019), Ashmolean Museum, on his award-winning Exhibition ‘Last Supper at Pompeii’; Prof. Bert Smith (2018), Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art, Oxford, on ‘The image and cult of Antinous, AD 130-138’; and Dr Roger Tomlin (2017), Wolfson College, Oxford, on ‘Roman London’s First Voices: new writing-tablets from Roman Britain’.
D. Other Events
In between AGMs the Society arranges for other research-focused events. For instance in February 2019 Professor Michael Scott (University or Warwick) addressed the Society on ‘Invisible Herculaneum’ (https://universityoflondon.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=79a9ad09-09f2-48c0-affd-ad5001423628&query=Invisible%20Herculaneum – podcast) and on 27 February 2020 Professor Steven Tuck (Miami University, Ohio) spoke on ‘Can We Find Survivors from the Eruption of Vesuvius AD 79?’ (available on the Society’s YouTube channel ). In February 2022 we enjoyed outstanding presentations from Professor Pedar Foss, DePauw University, on “Ashy Tuesday-Wednesday: The Date and Sequence of the AD 79 Eruption”, and Professor Roy Gibson, Durham University, on “From Como to the Bay of Naples: Pliny’s Epistolary Italy” – also available on YouTube.