Domus Herculanensis Rationes (DHER). Dal rilievo archeologico alla cultura dell'abitare.

This article provides an introduction to the program Vesuviana of the Bologna University, and to the new research project carried out by the Department of Archaeology, in particular by the same team of the "Pompei - Insula del Centenario (IX 8)" Project, in cooperation with both the Soprintendenze Archeologiche di Pompei e Napoli and other Universities. The DHER Project (Domus Herculanensis Rationes) main research field is the housing culture, in the Herculaneum site case-study. Two are its main aims: making a photogrammetric corpus, with commentary, of the domestic decorative assemblages (wall paintings and floors), in order to produce a complete, homogeneous and metrically correct data base; reporting, analizing, and studying integrally a systematically an entire city-block (the insula 3.), building by building, strating from the Casa dello Scheletro and Casa del Tramezzo di Legno. The DHER Project has, similarly to his first model (the "Pompei - Insula del Centenario" Project), an interdisciplinary (archaeological-archaeometric) and contextual approach, extended to both the material or documental evidence. Its most innovative feature is the role played by a new genre of archaeological excavation: excavations extra-situ, in archives, libraries and museums, as condicio sine qua non for in situ excavations.