OXFORD, Miss. – Centuries before Kilroy was here, “Hyacinthus was here,” lurking around the streets of ancient Herculaneum, carving his eternal presence into wall plaster with graffiti.

Hyacinthus’ reminder is joined by other graffiti etched into the walls of the Italian town that was entombed under tons of volcanic pyroclastic flows from the erupting Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Other graffiti writers professed their love while some wrote short poetry or drew elaborate images of camels and women. And some, not surprisingly, carved obscenities or used their engravings to spread vicious rumors.

These inscriptions have been preserved for centuries by the weight of the exploding Vesuvius. Those graffiti and graffiti from the neighboring town of Pompeii, also buried by the blast of Vesuvius, are being documented and digitized by The Ancient Graffiti Project, a venture whose field director is University of Mississippi classics professor Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons.

“The Ancient Graffiti Project is an archeological project whose goal is to find, document and digitize ancient graffiti from the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum,” she said. “We search for graffiti on the walls of these ancient cities, document them using archeological techniques and then digitize them in an online, free database so that anybody in the world can learn about ancient graffiti.”

Graffiti were probably ubiquitous in ancient cultures, DiBiasie-Sammons said, noting that ancient Rome, for example, was likely covered with graffiti, but the wall plaster preserving these engravings did not survive until modern times. Fortunately for the project – though unfortunately for the residents of Pompeii, Herculaneum and other nearby Roman settlements – the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving the graffiti.

“Ancient graffiti give us a sense of what it was like to live 2,000 years ago,” DiBiasie-Sammons said. “One thing I’ve been struck by is that life 2,000 years ago was not so different than life today. We express some of the same sorts of thoughts and ideas and dislikes.

“I believe we can learn a lot about ourselves by looking to the past. This is one reason why the study of classics is important: by looking backward, we can learn a great deal about the present.”

During fieldwork in previous summers, the project, which started in 2014, has digitized more than 500 ancient graffiti, about 300 from Herculaneum and another 200 from Pompeii.

The project is directed by Rebecca Benefiel, an associate professor of classics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. The assistant director is Holly Sypniewski, an associate professor of classics at Millsaps College in Jackson.

The process for documenting the graffiti includes work both in the field and in the library, Sypniewski said. Project members study all published documentation of each graffito and, when possible, archival information.

That information is compiled into an electronic publication, but the project also studies those inscriptions that survive on site and records other information such as the graffito’s size, letter shapes and exact location. The project then photographs each inscription extensively and makes precise line drawings to record how each inscription appears.

“It’s a multistage and complex process that requires many different types of scholarly research and work,” she said.

This summer, DiBiasie-Sammons and three Ole Miss students, along with other members of the project, will return to Herculaneum to document the graffiti. Next summer, DiBiasie-Sammons will spend her field season in Pompeii, which once had about 8,000 graffiti markings.

Madeleine Louise McCracken, a freshman classics major from Austin, Texas, is one of those students going to Italy this summer for fieldwork.

“I hope to gain a firsthand knowledge of Roman culture and daily life in Herculaneum while also getting experience in the archaeological field,” she said. “It is a unique opportunity to put the knowledge that I have gained into context while also learning new skills that will help me in my future studies.

“I am fascinated with the lives and cultures of ancient civilizations, and I think that it is interesting and important to study their daily lives and compare how the ancients lived to modern society.”

The ancient graffiti were etched into wall plaster and differ from stone inscriptions, which were given forethought, while many of the graffiti were more spontaneous. But not all the engravings are impromptu words or phrases. There are poems, drawings of animals, prayers to gods for help – any number of inscriptions.

Since ancient Romans did not have cheap access to paper, items a modern human might write on a Post-it note, an average Roman citizen would write on a wall.

“Ancient graffiti are different than modern graffiti in that modern graffiti are either now illegal or frowned upon, but this doesn’t seem to have been the case in antiquity,” said DiBiasie-Sammons, who discovered her love of archeology during a second-grade field trip to an archeological excavation in her native Kentucky.

“People were allowed to write in interior spaces of homes, but unlike today’s graffiti, which are typically large, spray-painted and draw your attention, ancient graffiti are usually really hard to find. They are often lightly scratched into the wall plaster, so if you’re not trained to look for this type of writing, it is easy to miss.”

The professors involved in The Ancient Graffiti Project seek out different types of funding to make the project possible: grants, support from project members’ home institutions and support from organizations such as the Center for Hellenic Studies, Sypniewski said. 

Most recently, the project was aided by a crowd-funding campaign organized to help students participate.

DiBiasie-Sammons said UM has been “incredibly supportive, especially the Department of Classics. I have all the technological resources available to me that I need to do this research.”

The Mike and Mary McDonnell Endowment in Classics, created in 2009, also has been a wonderful resource for classics majors, particularly when it comes to travel overseas, DiBiasie-Sammons said.

“This summer, we will offer scholarships to any of the participating students who are classics majors from an UM Foundation fund generated from the Mike and Mary McDonnell Endowment in Classics,” said Molly Pasco-Pranger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Classics.

“The McDonnells’ first priority for the endowment is summer travel to classics students to study archaeological sites, so this project fits with their desires perfectly. We are hoping for an even bigger group of undergrads to participate next summer, when we offer a class in connection with the project.

“The study of ancient graffiti offers an incomparable window into the daily life of Romans of every social class that will allow our students to connect with the culture they are studying in new and vivid ways.”

The Ancient Graffiti Project also gives students a chance to do independent research, DiBiasie-Sammons said.

“This material hasn’t been studied extensively so there’s opportunity for students to do completely original research that makes a significant contribution to the field,” she said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for students to really make a difference in our understanding of the ancient Romans.”

Keep up with the faculty and students involved with The Ancient Graffiti Project during the field season this summer by following the project on social media via Herculaneum Graffiti Project on Facebook or @hercgraffproj on Twitter.

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi’s Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts will host “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” for one performance at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (April 24).

The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, from the creators of “The Sound of Music,” puts a contemporary twist on the classic fairy tale. Featuring dazzling costumes and scenes, the performance transports viewers back to their childhood through memorable moments, including the pumpkin, the glass slipper and the masked ball.

A live orchestra will perform some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner” and “Ten Minutes Ago.”

Kate Meacham, Ford Center marketing director, said she is excited to bring this funny and romantic Broadway experience to Oxford.

“Cinderella is such a fun story, and this is the same production that won a Tony when it was on Broadway in 2013,” she said. “We are sure that our audiences will enjoy it and have a magical time.”

Tickets are available at the UM Box Office inside the Ford Center or online at https://olemissboxoffice.com/.

They are $75 for orchestra/parterre and tier 1 box levels, $69 for mezzanine and tier 2 box levels and $63 for the balcony level. A 10 percent discount is available for UM faculty, staff and retirees when tickets are purchased at the box office. UM student tickets are $25 for the orchestra/parterre level and $17 for the mezzanine/balcony level.

OXFORD, Miss. – University of Mississippi theater students will bring Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth” to life this weekend with a performance at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

The classic Shakespeare tale, set in medieval Scotland, chronicles the rise and fall of the warrior Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, as they lust for power and grab an easy opportunity to kill the reigning king, leading to a civil war in the kingdom.

The Ole Miss Theatre production opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday (April 20), but there are multiple chances to catch the show throughout the weekend. Performances are also set for 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

The production is led by guest director Cynthia White, from the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, whose expertise in Shakespearean tragedies creates a unique opportunity for both the student actors and audiences. White has directed several Shakespearean plays at regional theatres and universities across the country.

“I think it’s especially great that Ole Miss brought in a woman director for this large production at the Ford Center, since it’s important to give the students the opportunity to work with a wide range of professionals in their field – and after many years in the field, it still seems to be of note that I am a woman director,” White said.

Joe Turner Cantu, Ole Miss professor of theatre arts, taught White many years ago at Southern Methodist University. She has since directed him in two Shakespeare productions, and he recommended her to the department as a guest director because of her extensive knowledge.

“Last year I recommended Cynthia, first, because she is an exceptional director and, second, because I felt it would be great for our students to work with a professional female director,” Cantu said.

White hosted on-campus auditions in January and has cast 21 students in the production. The performance stays true to the story itself, but the design, costumes and lighting are influenced by the HBO drama “Game of Thrones.”

“In Shakespeare’s time, all the actors were men and costumes were basically their everyday Elizabethan clothing,” she said. “For our production, some of the warriors are women because some of the women in the theatre department are very good at working with the period weapons and because our world is more diverse than Shakespeare’s world was.”

White said she is creating a hybrid world that has strong elements of medieval Scotland, including violence, manipulation and immorality, all of which reflect the present day.

“It is nearly impossible to tell the tale of Macbeth without noticing certain similarities with our current world,” she said. “And that’s what makes theatre powerful: we tell old stories that shed light on our contemporary lives.”

Tickets are available at the UM Box Office inside the Ford Center or online at https://olemissboxoffice.com/. They are $21 for orchestra/parterre and tier 1 box levels, $18 for mezzanine and tier 2 box levels and $15 for the balcony level. A 20 percent discount is available for UM faculty, staff and retirees when tickets are purchased at the box office. All Ole Miss student tickets are $7.