Dialface ID 476
Abstract
In Villa A of the Oplontis excavation area, called Villa di Poppea after Nero's wife, a conical sundial was found in 1973. It is now kept in the depository. Oplontis was a residential city between Pompeii and Herculanum, very small but with large villas. It was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The modern name of the city is Torre Annunziata. The dial is conical, of white marble, and in a good state of conservation with only a small part broken off at the right upper edge. Its decoration is of a very common type with two six-petalled rosettes on either side of a crescent moon on the oblique front surface. A metallic gnomon is still present on its upper side, the length of which is 85 mm.
Measurements
This object has not been measured by the 3D pipeline. Its entry in the catalogue rests on the published description only; no surface fit, latitude or line detection exists for it.
References
- – Catamo, Mario, Lanciano, N., Locher, K., Lombadero, M., Valdes, M., Fifteen Further Greco-Roman Sundials from the Mediteranean Area and Sudan, 2000, p. 217 f.
- – Su due orologi solari di Oplontis non presenti nell'opera della Gibbs, La Spezia, 1996
- – Winter, Eva, Zeitzeichen. Zur Entwicklung und Verwendung antiker Zeitmesser, Berlin and Boston, 2013, p. 446.
- – Jashemski, Wilhelmina F., The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, New York, 1979, II, p. 294.
- – de Caro, Stefano, The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppaea at Oplontis: A Preliminary Report, Washington D.C., 1978, 118-120, fig. 31.