User:Mipsallison/Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski

Wilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski (July 10, 1910 – December 24, 2007) was an American scholar of the ancient site of Pompeii, where her archaeological investigations focused on the evidence of gardens and horticulture in the ancient city. She is remembered for her contributions to archaeobotany at Pompeiian sites, as she developed methods for preserving the remains of roots from antiquity, known as root casting.


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Early life and education
Jashemski was born in York, Nebraska. She studied mathematics and Latin at York College, graduating with her bachelor's degree in 1931. Jashemski attended the University of Chicago, earning her doctorate degree in ancient history with a focus in Roman law in 1942.

Career
She began teaching in 1935, and taught at Lindenwood College, Missouri, before serving on the faculty of the University of Maryland from 1946 to 1980.

Jashemski's work at Pompeii, Villa Boscoreale, and Oplontis began in 1961 and continued until 1984. She is known for being a pioneer in the field of garden archaeology. She also worked on the excavation of the gardens of the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli. Jashemski is viewed as a pioneer of the field of garden archaeology in the ancient Mediterranean. She was awarded the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement by the Archaeological Institute of America in 1996, after the publication of the second volume of her work The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius. Jashemski's work is included in the online public database Gardens of the Roman Empire, which launched in April 2021 with entries for more than 100 gardens.

Excavation Technique
Jashemski was known as a pioneer of the technique of root casting. To perform a root casting, archaeologists identify cavities, where the plant matter decayed, and the gap was filled by other material, and measure them. These cavities were subsequently filled with plaster, and excavated.
 * Planting patterns