Skip to 0 minutes and 16 seconds Imperial Rome dominated the Mediterranean basin, and for a period of 600 years, successfully unified the peoples around that basin economically and politically. Essential to the success of this was its Maritime port of Portus. Here we are in the most important port site in the whole of the Roman Mediterranean, a site which is– you see it all around you. It’s so self-evidently really, really rich. It has the potential to tell us so much, and yet so little work has been done.
Skip to 0 minutes and 49 seconds The Portus MOOC is a unique learning experience, which is going to introduce you to the first time with learning about a port at the broad scale down to understanding individual buildings within it, and understanding, also, the life that was played out within those rooms and buildings by looking at the finds and their relationship, and what they tell us about life at the port. So it’s about giving you an idea about what happened here and also the people who lived here, what the buildings looked like that they lived and worked in.
Skip to 1 minute and 27 seconds Fantastic specialists, many of whom you’ll hear from as part of this MOOC to work on analysing and recording the remains, so perhaps using photogrammetry, or aerial photography, or geophysics as a way of meticulously capturing the beautifully preserved detail at Portus. By studying this MOOC, you will be able to see how we deal with these challenges, how we bring results of all of these different disciplines together, and just how rewarding the process can be. And as a MOOC student, you’ll learn alongside our student guides who’ve worked at Portus already. Because I’m engaging with history in a concrete way. Because I get to dig up the history I’ve loved learning about. This is very much a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Skip to 2 minutes and 11 seconds Just something I never thought I was going to be able to do. So come and join us here online to learn about the Roman empire and become a Portus researcher. We’ll show you the things we’ve discovered, the data we capture, and how to piece it all together to tell the story of the site. And I hope you really enjoy doing what we have the privilege of doing each and every day, studying and telling other people about Portus.
