Featured Pictures


		The Oinoanda Inscription (fragment 12 pictured) was an inscribed limestone wall conspicuously located in an open marketplace generally referred to as the "Esplanade" in the ancient city of Oinoanda. The inscription, commissioned by Diogenes of Oinoanda, proclaimed the wisdom of Epicurus, then deceased for five centuries. This unique text, rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, has attracted many modern readers. The wall itself, however, has long been demolished. Its blocks were used for building houses, paving streets, etc. They were discovered one by one. Photo credit: Yannis Avramides


		Site of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, where the Herculaneum Papyri were rediscovered. It is identified as the magnificent seafront retreat for Piso, Julius Caesar's father-in-law. It stretches down towards the sea in four terraces. Piso, a literate man who patronized poets and philosophers (most notably Philodemus) built there a fine library, the only one to survive intact from antiquity. Photo credit: Erik Anderson


		The Getty Villa near Malibu, California is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria. In 1974, J. Paul Getty opened the Getty Villa as his second museum in a re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, the site where the Herculaneum Papyri were rediscovered. Photo credit: Erik Anderson