Articles by Giovanni Azzena

In this short essay, the Author reflects on what the prospects were for the Technical Tables for the coordination and integration of the National Archaeological Territorial Information System at different spatial scales, and the subsequent outcomes. This leads the Author to critically analyze the role of technology and induces him to think about a change in the point of view and to focus on a new perspective.

This paper aims at a comparative reading of some archaeological remains in the island of Sardinia, starting from a reflection on the UNESCO discipline, which introduces a hierarchy of cultural heritage based on the level of worthiness of protection and provides enhanced protection for the goods that are on its list. The main goal of the study is to investigate in parallel the application of this ‘selective appreciation’ on the actual context of the protection of the so-called ‘real cultural heritage’ (article 9 of the Italian Constitution). The study proceeds by comparing some important sites on the island having similar contextualization, but different strategies for protection: the Archaeological Park of Porto Torres, Su Nuraxi in Barumini, registered since 1997 in the World Heritage List of UNESCO, and the archaeological area of Neapolis (Oristano). From comparisons and analysis carried out in selected areas it was possible to focus attention on some critical aspects of the UNESCO rules and on contradictions between the operational guidelines and the objectives that the organization provides for the protection of property. In the wake of new reforms for the reorganization of the Ministry of Heritage, Culture and Tourism, the critical issues discussed in this paper appear even more evident in Sardinia. The idea of a ‘protection of the exceptional’ appears to reduce the opportunities of intervention, by isolating the evidence from its context and making the action of protection inadequate for the territory and for the same items contained therein.

The Office for the Archaeological Map of Italy was established by Royal Decree in 1889. In 1926, as an ideal continuation of the Archaeological Map, the first volume of the Forma Italiae was published. Subsequently, with the advent of information technology, a new era of archaeological mapping began, adjusting the Forma Italiae to the latest technological developments. Inheriting this solid methodological basis, and benefitting from the latest digital innovations, we present the Sardinian node of the national archaeological computer network. This is not the proposal for the creation of yet another archaeological information system, but a project for the creation of a tool aimed at data sharing and identification of archaeological heritage property. The project intends to be a point of reference for data exchange on a national and international scale and at different levels of detail.

Around the mid 1980s, the Italian sector - at the time very limited - of the archaeological sciences interested in geo-topographical problems responded eagerly to the practical and theoretical solutions offered by computer science and by advanced technologies, and became one of the most developed sectors in the European panorama in this particular subject. Twenty years later, we can observe, on one hand, the notable success of this type of applications that has, among other things, contributed to drive towards territorial studies many sectors of Italian research that had not previously been interested in it; and, on the other hand, the extreme fragmentation of the initiatives, that remains an unsolved problem for future developments. Within a single decade in fact we lost those guidelines that would have been able to transform some high but still distant peaks of quality, into a systematically coordinated approach, and, especially, in a common cognitive base, which was perhaps primitive but for this reason, "basic", not only for the development of research, but also for a diffused and shared means of safeguarding our archaeological heritage.

There are marked 'incommunicability symptoms' in language with which archaeology should communicate, in particular, with urban and landscape planning, and also possible relationships with new methods of landscape interpretation and management. In a vanishing context no longer based only on historical instance, 'interdisciplinarity' is a possible solution.

Review article.

This paper is a synthesis of an experimental study on ancient topography and town-planning in a historical quarter of Rome, Trastevere. The focus is on methodological aspects, and in particular on computerized applications. Thy have been used, at first, to speed up the input and the management of data, but the results deeply influenced the methods and the logical course of the research itself. The study can therefore be considered also as a proposal for a modular application to other urban contexts. Traditional sources of information were taken into account, as in any study on ancient topography, including the archaeological map (concerning both visible and bibliographically documented elements) drawn on the basis of present-day cartography, literary and archival sources and historical cartography (from Forma Urbis Severiana to Catasto Pio-Gregoriano). In addition to the study of some important methodological consequences of this approach, the results are outlined of having applied computerised procedures of cartographical transformation, not previously adopted in any archaeological framework.

Between 1989 and 1992, studies and experiments on automatic systems for the acquisition, calculation and management of archaeological data relating to the Carta Archeologica d’Italia (Forma Italiae) were carried out. The different phases of application confirmed the methodological assumptions originally outlined in the first issue of this journal: from the use of a GPS system to locate the archaeological survey station, to the exploitation of particular functions of commercial geodetic software, and to the strengthening of the value of an approach whose “natural” end consists in creating a Geographic Information System for archaeology.

The application of computer science and advanced technologies to the topographical management of archaeological data have made it possible, in the last five years, to adjust an instrument of a strong tradition, such as the “Forma Italiae”, to the new requirements for the planning and protection of a territory. From the application of digital mapping to historical cities, the management of territorial archaeological data, satellite survey and multimedia distribution of information, the development outlook becomes gradually broader, respecting however, the methodological progress achieved during a century of tradition in historical topographical studies.