Unseen Hands: Designing Gardens in the Roman World

Kaja Tally-Schumacher is an Assistant Professor of Environmental History at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and an Assistant Director of the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii. Her primary area of expertise is the archaeology and analysis of designed landscapes and ancient environments in the Roman world from the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE, across Western Eurasia and North Africa, ranging from urban plantings to suburban and rural gardens.

Her project Unseen Hands is an interdisciplinary exploration of palimpsestic archives that illuminates the often-invisible enslaved, freed, and freeborn designers and gardeners of the Roman world.