AFoH — Friends of Herculaneum

American Friends of Herculaneum
promoting appreciation for herculaneum

The American Friends of Herculaneum (the AFoH, est. New York 2010) are scholars, students, docents, and amateurs of all levels interested in the ancient culture, the volcanic catastrophe, and scientific rediscovery of Herculaneum. Formally incorporated and directly affiliated with the UK Friends of Herculaneum Society (est. Oxford), our common objectives are:

to advance the education of the public concerning Herculaneum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

to promote research on Herculaneum, including the continued investigation of the Villa of the Papyri, and the publication of important research

to promote the conservation, for the benefit of the public, of artefacts and buildings at Herculaneum

We hope you'll join us!

Supporting High Quality Scholarship

The AFoH Board proudly supports annually graduate and undergraduate research fellowships.
Applications for the 2026 competition are due on 1 March 2026. Click the link for the application form.

The AFoH proudly contributed seed-grant to the forthcoming film by Jon Dunham of La Roma Films, a documentary about the next-generation technology being applied to the Herculaneum Papyri.

Why join the American Friends?

The AFoH promote public awareness of issues pertaining to Herculaneum.
We support students of papyrology, archaeology, history, and classical philology, and all who have even amateur interest in ancient Herculaneum benefit from membership.
Annual meetings, semi-annual publications of the newsletter, and on-site visits to Naples and Herculaneum arranged every other year keep AFoH members up to date and well connected.
All donations and membership subscriptions are tax deductible. Join here, or send email to "herculaneum at byu.edu".

What's New?

Society for Classical Studies annual meetings
The AFoH-sponsored SCS/AIA session
San Francisco Hilton Union Square, 8 Jan 2026, 8:00 a.m. Pacific
featured our largest program of academic papers to date.

"Herculaneum: an Unfolding Past"
organized by Carol Mattusch and David Sider
with papers by
Killian Fleicher, University of Tübingen
Jeff Fish, Baylor University
Nancy Ramage, Ithaca College
Federica Nicolardi, University of Naples
Roger Macfarlane and McKay Hammarstrom, BYU
David Blank, University of California at Los Angeles

To register for the conference and view the hybrid session remotely, visit https://classicalstudies.org.

Summaries of the presented scholarship will be posted on this site shortly after the meeting.

Where We've Been

AFoH scholars lecture regularly in prominent venues
from Malibu to Boston and beyond.
Their study of Herculaneum takes them even farther afield.
Above, Ambra Spinelli, AFoH Scholar 2016, takes measurements
for her doctoral thesis in the Casa di Tramezzo di Legno.

AFoH Scholar 2019 Claudio Vergara has recently published an authoritative, scholarly edition of Philodemus De Providentia (La Provvidenza = On Providence) with a stunning, facsimile maquette of all fragments informing the edition, i.e. PHerc. 1577, 1579, 1636, 1100, and 1670, Dr Vergara's publication appears in the series La Scuola di Epicuro, vol. 21 (Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2025).

Actively Fostering Young Scholars

We are happy to announce winners of
the 2025 AFoH Scholarships

McKay Hammarstrom (Brigham Young University)
Reagan Gibson (Florida State University)

Each is pursuing exciting, new work in the study of ancient Herculaneum. Their reports will appear
in Herculaneum Archaeology next issue.

The American Friends of Herculaneum since 2018 have sponsored two to three annual scholarships for graduate and undergraduate students of ancient Herculaneum. The competition typically opens in early Spring. Contact by email herculaneum@byu.edu for further information.

Above, Katy Knortz, AFoH Scholar 2018, studies pottery remains at Cappabiancha, Pollena Trocchia (NA) alongside other participants in the Apolline Project.

J.J. Winckelmann invented "art history" studying the "Dresden Women" extracted from the Theater in 1709

AFoH Partners: Ancient Graffiti Project

detail of PHerc Paris 1, BYU MSI

J.S. Dunkelbarger studied Herculaneum dining spaces w/ 2018 AFoH fellowship

Drunken Satyr, bronze found at Villa dei Papiri (1754), NM 5628

Sider and Seales at the 2019 SCS Panel