Articles by Carlo Beltrame

Ca’ Foscari University is addressing different archaeological issues to enhance knowledge about shipwrecks through digital technologies. In the last few years, the team has applied virtual modelling and digital techniques on archive and legacy data, starting with an innovative museum installation regarding the wreck of the Napoleonic brig Mercurio and cargos of amphoras of the Byzantine shipwreck of Cape Stoba. The potential of digital technologies has allowed us to analyse and elaborate different kinds of documentation, including archives, to obtain 3D models that could be studied and visualized with innovative technological solutions. The paper presents an original proposal to create a 3D virtual model of an ancient shipwreck based on archival and heterogeneous data. Regarding the Grado I Roman shipwreck, we processed perspective drawings of the hull and the amphoras, measurements during the excavations, digitalization of analogical images and of a survey of the cardboard scale model to obtain a complete virtual 3D model of the shipwreck. Legacy data represent a precious source for bringing to life obsolete representations of cultural heritage.

The wreck of the ship Mercurio lies at a depth of 17 m, off Punta Tagliamento, between the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. It was discovered in 2001, and was excavated in 2001, and again between 2004 and 2011, by Carlo Beltrame (Università Ca’ Foscari) in collaboration with the local archaeological superintendency. It was a brigantine, belonging to an Italian-French squadron, sunk during the battle of Grado in the 1812. Problems typical of post-Medieval ships (especially when military), such as the complexity of the aspect because of the presence of metal concretions and a lot of items of different materials and typologies and the difficulties in documenting very small objects (such as the many buttons of uniforms) with the photogrammetrical system, were solved with the use of an intra-site GIS on a Quantum GIS open source application. The GIS allowed us not only to manage the large amount of information (site-plans, topological positions of the items, photos, etc.) produced during the excavations, but also to answer questions about the dynamics both of the sinking and the formation processes and, thanks to the use of a system of virtual frames, about the location of the nautical equipment, the links between the human skeletons and the personal objects and parts of the uniforms and the location of the caulker store-room.