Frozen motion: Contextualizing wheel rut data within and beyond the Pompeiian street grid

Abstract

The past few decades have seen a growing use of GIS in archaeological research to study ancient movement at varying scales. In the case of urban networks, most spatial analyses of street systems have been modelled on pedestrian movement. At the site of Pompeii, however, recent scholarship has highlighted the ways in which the material evidence of the construction, use, and disuse of the street network inherently underlie the importance of vehicular traffic throughout the city. Dividing Pompeii's streets into discrete units of movement, this study geospatially maps wheel-rut measurements collected by the author onto previously published data of Pompeiian street paving and vehicular traffic. The resultant patterns between the paving history, traffic flow, and wheel-rutting across the street network reveal important transformations in the nature and extent of the city's connectivity to the surrounding countryside, and highlight the potential for similar approaches at other ancient urban centers.