Articles by Paola Santoro

The authors present a detailed description of the project of the virtual reunification and recontextualisation of the grave goods found in a tomb of the Sabine necropolis of Colle del Forno, which held a princely burial: archaeological research, technical analyses, restoration, 3D reconstruction of the cart found inside the tomb and of its bronze decoration, and virtual reconstitution of the grave goods – constituted both by local products and objects imported from the Orient, as well as by two wheeled vehicles: a cart and a chariot) – in the framework of their original archaeological and cultural context. Besides a DVD, which shows a video at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in the room containing the exhibition of the cart and other objects from the tomb, a web site has been created (http://www.principisabini.it/): the web visitors can reconstruct the history of the discovery, walk through this 7th-6th century BC tomb, see the structural and functional mechanisms of the cart in action, and enjoy this Italic masterpiece.

The article presents some aspects of the research project which has been carried out in the middle Tiber Valley (Sabina Tiberina), to analyse the distribution of archaeological sites in the territory, based on new field surveys and the study of archive documents ('Progetto Galantina'). The research takes advantage of the positive experiment conducted by the Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà Italiche e del Mediterraneo Antico (ISCIMA) of the Italian CNR to set up and integrate within a Geographical Information System a new model of archiving, managing and querying archaeological information, focused on the analysis of excavation diaries and their SGML and XML encoding. The implemented system gives rise to a many-sided repeatable digital model, easily exportable in various situations. The integration between the DTD established to formally describe archaeological data and the elements of the TEI Lite and Dublin Core standards makes it possible to record and query data coming from both published excavation reports and archive documents dating from the nineteenth century, which deal with the description of archaeological itineraries around Rome. The example presented in this paper refers to the manuscript by Ercole Nardi 'Ruderi delle Ville Romano-Sabine nei dintorni di Poggio Mirteto' (1885) and is aimed at preserving archaeological information through digital supports, electronic exchange formats and especially reliability of the information integrity. Moreover, it makes an attempt to experiment and develop new forms of knowledge diffusion which are more suitable for interactive web consultation than passive reading.

The group of bronze sheets with repoussé decoration, kept in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and coming from the princely burial in Tomb XI at the Colle del Forno necropolis, has been identified as the decoration of a chariot and the magnificent upholstery from horse trappings. This group represents a collection of extraordinary interest regarding figurative culture in the Tiber river area in the Late Orientalizing Period, an identification proven by a second group of objects kept in the same museum. The decorative repertory represents one of the most refined expressions of the artistic style called “Orientalizzante fiorito”, which is best known from the decoration of bucchero pottery, carved ivories and ostrich eggs. Computer graphic techniques have been used for the documentation and study of this repertory, using as a base the excellent photographic documentation provided by the Glyptotek. This methodology, experimented through the use of a graphical workstation at the Istituto per l’Archeologia Etrusco-Italica, provides the opportunity to create a graphical documentation very close to the original technical and graphical cipher and qualifies itself as a very important tool for reading elements regarding the incision technique. However, close collaboration between the specialist and the archaeologist is essential in order to validate this as a useful scientific method of documentation.

In general, a territory can be considered as the centre which contains all information related to different historical ages. The study of a portion of a given territory characterised by the presence of archaeological sites must be aimed at the complete and accurate acquisition of environmental data (e.g. topography, geo-morphology, litho-stratigraphy, land use, etc.), which will be used for an overall study of the site, the reconstruction of the man-environment interaction, and the evaluation of possible applications of geophysical prospecting methods. By interpreting different sets of remote-sensing data, studying existing geological and geo-morphological information and through systematic field work (e.g. archaeological survey, geophysical investigations, etc.), a wide spectrum of environmental data can be collected. The methodology of a complete analysis of the territory can be summarised as follows: analysis of remote-sensing data sets and their geo-referencing; DTM of the selected study area; morphological and geological definition of the selected study area; identification, location and geo-referencing of all archaeological sites in the territory; high-resolution integrated geophysical prospecting methods, to delineate the extension of the site and to locate the archaeological structures; a complete description of the site in its environmental context; definition of an integrated analysis method, based on the spatial correlation of the different data sets; study and design of a GIS for the management of all data sets which have been collected, elaborated and interpreted; definition of a model for the knowledge and protection of the historical and environmental aspects of the territory.