Having submitted my doctoral thesis and undergone my viva during the summer of 2011, I arrived in Rome ready to begin my postdoctoral project ‘Gardens of Hygieia: the role of the hortus in Roman domestic medical practice’.

The horti of the Roman Empire in general and Roman Italy in particular have been the subject of much scholarly attention in recent years, but in this scholarship the overriding concern has been the significance of horti from an aesthetic or a symbolic point of view, and particular attention has been paid to those that can be associated with historically significant individuals. However, all of this is far removed from the tradition of the hortus as a productive irrigated space used to grow useful plants, herbs, fruit and vegetables, and, consequently, it has become necessary to refocus debates regarding the gardens of the Roman Republic and Empire towards their economical and practical aspects/elements. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire relied upon small units of production such as the hortus, not only for their livelihoods, but also for their basic survival and subsistence. The aim of my research project was therefore two-fold: to provide a comprehensive study of the role of the hortus as a source not only of food but also of medicine, and to show how these roles were linked not only with regard to the Roman family's physical and mental well-being, but also to its economic subsistence and prosperity. Over the course of the nine months I spent at the British School at Rome, I undertook critical readings of a range of works of ancient literature that discuss horti. I visited the remains of villae, domus and insulae in and around Rome and Ostia (and also recreations of them on the HBO Rome set at Cinecittà), and went further afield to the bay of Naples to examine the remains of horti at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Boscoreale.

I presented papers on aspects of my research project at the Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica, the Valle Giulia Dialogues, and also delivered a public lecture as part of the ‘City of Rome’ postgraduate course. This latter presentation was something I was particularly proud to have been asked to do, as it was as an MA student taking part in the ‘City of Rome’ course in 2005 that I was first given the opportunity to stay at the BSR. In addition to working on my research project, I co-organized an international one-day workshop entitled ‘Bodies of Evidence: Re-defining Approaches to the Anatomical Votive’ with 2005–6 Rome Fellow Dr Emma-Jayne Graham. The workshop was attended by speakers and delegates from Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Israel and South Africa. I also put the finishing touches to two academic articles, and prepared the manuscript of the monograph based on my doctoral thesis ‘Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt’. I submitted it to Archaeopress, and it has been accepted for publication in the British Archaeological Reports: Studies in Early Medicine series, and is due to be published in the autumn of 2012.

I am very grateful to everyone at the BSR, but particularly Christopher Smith, Joanna Kostylo and Maria Pia Malvezzi, for not only facilitating my research and other academic activities, but also for their encouragement and support.