Peter Campbell alerts us to this very interesting looking online course … some excerpts:

The ‘Archaeology of Portus MOOC’ will enable anyone to study online, for free, wherever they are in the world – while benefitting from the decades of research carried out by the University’s Portus Project at this historic site located around 30 miles from Italy’s capital city. The MOOC requires no previous experience, there is no admission interview and no need to have ever studied online or even in higher education.

Director of the Portus Project, Professor Simon Keay comments: “This course will focus on how we work at Portus and what it tells us about imperial Rome. The port was Rome’s gateway to the Mediterranean –playing a key role in trade across Europe and beyond. It was vital to the survival of the Roman Empire.”

[…]

Portus was the maritime port of ancient Rome and together with the neighbouring river port at Ostia, was the focus of a network of ports serving imperial Rome between the mid-1st century AD and the 6th century AD.

The MOOC will provide access to Portus Project research data, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the British School at Rome and the University of Southampton, with the support of the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma. It also provides an insight into the wide range of digital technologies employed to record, analyse and present the site. […]

More details:

• Discover the ancient port of Rome with free online learning with the University of Southampton MOOC