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.