Archeologia e Calcolatori 28.2 - 2017

Introduction to the International Conference KAINUA 2017.

Keynote speech introducing the Session ‘Ancient Cities: Past and Current Perspectives’.

Opening speech in the Session ‘Ancient Cities: Past and Current Perspectives’.

The paper opens with a series of passages from ancient historiographic sources on the concept of cities in pre-Roman Italy, on the rite of foundation and on internal urban organization, apart from the vast bibliography. We then focus on the case of the settlement of Accesa (Municipality of Massa Marittima, GR). This is one of several settlements located E and N of Vetulonia, controlled by this same city and connected through by river valleys to areas of mining interest in the district of the Colline Metallifere and the Tyrrhenian coast. Unlike other settlements, where only tombs mostly dating to the Archaic period have been discovered, Accesa has tombs and houses included in a period that ranges from the recent Villanovan to the Archaic. Its main characteristic is the division into distinct neighborhoods, functionalized in the operations that were conducted there: exploitation of mines and metallurgical activity. Their genesis is linked to a number of economic and sociological factors that, integrated together, find an eloquent expression in the urban structure.

The paper aims to analyse the Etruscan city of Marzabotto, the ancient Kainua, with an integrated approach which considers all the aspects, from the urban layout to sacred and domestic architecture, to handcraft production, as a reflection of community, identity values and social structure. With the aid of theoretical and methodological perspectives on production of ancient urban places, the most recent achievements are included in an archaeological framework which has now been completely revised.

The use of virtual reconstructions is an approach which has already been applied for past projects in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto. The Kainua Project, which aims at the virtual recreation of the whole Etruscan city, is based on the principles of the London and the Seville Charter. The modelling process of the virtual Kainua is based on a rigorous archaeological analysis. The ArchaeoBIM method, formed within the project, has been used to confirm the validation of the models and is therefore an important step towards a more detailed architectural analysis of non-preserved structures. The unexcavated areas of the Etruscan city were involved in a campaign of geophysical surveys, which were the basis for the recreation of wide areas of the city with a good approximation thanks to an interpretative scheme of the modules of the buildings and their allocation within the blocks. The virtual Kainua is first of all an analysis tool. As a matter of fact, through forms of interactivity and simulations the virtual model allows us to formulate important considerations about historical and social issues. The model, however, is also the base for an updated system for the fruition of the archaeological area by a wider audience, chiefly onsite and it becomes a decoding key that visitors can use during their visit.

Excavations in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto, the ancient Kainua, have brought to light a well-developed production structure over time which, especially for the Etruscan world, makes Marzabotto an especially favourable, paradigmatic context for the study of this particular aspect. Thanks to the contributions from the most recent investigations, together with the revision of older excavation data, this theme has in recent years benefitted from a series of updated considerations. The quality and variety of the data collected permits analyses from multiple points of view, not only on an architectural and urban planning level, but also on social, economic and political-institutional levels.

In this paper we will briefly discuss the evolution of the solutions that the Chair ofEtruscology of the Bologna University applied to the topographic survey of the archaeological excavation in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto (BO). The operational choices, the instruments and the software used in the latest excavation fields will be presented here. We will then illustrate the applied experimental workflow and its possible further development in order to take full advantage of the possibilities and benefits offered by the 3D survey techniques.

The widespread use of technologies and processes aimed at information management is one of the main trends in today’s building industry. Collaboration, coordination and validation of design results are fostered by software and workflows that involve many disciplines. Taking into account these premises, this paper deals with the application of such a paradigm to the archaeological and architectural fields. The application to the particular case study of the Etruscan town of Kainua aspires to be exemplary, since it is referred to different metric scales, from the building to the urban settlement. The digital reconstruction of the whole town, which can be explored and studied by means of Virtual Reality, was validated from a philological point of view using an original interdisciplinary approach called ArchaeoBIM, i.e. a methodology that encompasses the information flow among different disciplines with the same interest in understanding, and virtually reconstructing, lost realities. Using this method, architectural proportions brought by existing literature, physical behaviours of materials and components, layouts of rooms and spaces regulated by rituals or historic traditions are collected in a model that is able to represent morphologies, analysis and functions. This model, basically a geometric database linking heterogeneous documents, can be used in many different ways, from analytic abstractions to static simulations, from solar analysis to visual renderings. It becomes a common language for information exchange among scholars and users interested in the dissemination and study of the cultural heritage.

This paper aims to explain the creation of the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of Kainua, an Etruscan city founded, following a rigorous urban plan, at the beginning of the 5th century BCE. This DTM was used as the basis for the virtual reconstruction of Kainua landscape from an urban to an architectural scale in a three-dimensional digital model, visualized in an interactive and immersive approach. The DTM was developed using different sources of elevation data, in order to take into account the geo-morphological transformations occurred in that area from the Etruscan period to the present day. The causes of these changes were natural (due to erosion phenomena) and anthropic (due to excavations for construction of transport infrastructure as well as those which occurred partly due to improvements made by landowners and partly to archaeologists who first began a systematic campaign of site studies). On positioning on the DTM, an analysis of the metrology and of the infrastructure of the ancient city (streets and sewers) made it possible to create a renewed vision and to propose a hypothesis for reconstructing the incomplete, or as yet unstudied, parts of the city, which only further excavations will confirm.

The paper aims to explain the analytical method used to virtually recreate the houses of the Etruscan city of Marzabotto. As stated in the title, the starting point of the process was the analysis conducted on the tangible archaeological evidence of building materials; these latter were fully integrated with data provided by the ancient sources and the latest technology. Next, the problems and the solutions adopted in order to recreate the houses are presented. In the last section the criteria used for the visual restitution of the unexcavated context of the ancient city are explained.

General conclusions of the ‘Kainua Project’ Special Session.

Pontecagnano is a large Etruscan-Samnite settlement located 8 km SE of Salerno, at the northern edge of the Sele plain. The well-investigated necropolis provided data that made it possible to analyse the structure of the ancient community and reconstruct its long-term development. Over the last few years, after archaeological investigations carried out during roadwork to widen the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway, a more systematic study of the site was begun. The analysis of archaeological data was combined with environmental and landscape studies, shedding light on the reasons behind the spatial organisation of the settlement, which was influenced by natural or man-made landscape elements such as streams, non-uniform dislocation of geological formations, terraces, roads, canals, etc. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the methods and instruments we used to develop a system that can dynamically combine archaeological and geomorphological data. The paper focuses particularly on the reconstruction of paleo-topographical areas of the ancient settlement. Our investigation outlined the physical and environmental limits within which the old town developed, especially as regards the archaic and classical period. Part of the work was devoted to reconstructing in detail the connections between the modern and the ancient landscape, not only by reading and interpreting the aerial photographs from 1945 to the present-day, but also by analyzing the evidence from the excavations. This approach allowed us to draw up a detailed geomorphologic map of the area of the ancient settlement - part of the GIS platform - and develop a three-dimensional model of the ground (DEM).

The study of the urban alignment of the settlement of Pyrgi and of the arrangement of the sacred areas was favoured by its abandonment after the phase of Romanization and by the possibility of performing large-scale research over its territory. The harbour and the sanctuary of Pyrgi were a fundamental pole of attraction for foreign haunters as the outpost of the metropolis of Caere. Their development was strictly linked to Pyrgi’s favourable geographical position along the Tyrrhenian maritime routes and to the presence of a water spring. The settlement was founded at the end of the 7th century BC, and was connected to Caere by means of a large road. The excavations conducted since 1957 by the Sapienza University of Rome next to the terminal section of the Caere-Pyrgi road brought to light a large sacred district. The new excavation area (2009-2016) is located in the district between the sanctuary and the settlement. It includes different buildings datable to 600 BC-4th century BC erected along a pebbled road that departs from Caere-Pyrgi and leads towards the harbour. The buildings, together with votive deposits and a fire-altar, outline a residential quarter that was perhaps attended by a priesthood, where ceremonial practices were also performed. The new evidence can be related to the sanctuary itself and sheds light on its overall organisation. The results of recent fieldwork have also contributed to a better understanding of Pyrgi’s urban alignment, possible defensive systems (suggested by the Greek name Pyrgoi) and the topographic relationship with the later Roman maritime colony. Thanks to the involvement of scholars from different disciplinary fields, wide-range research is being carried out to reconstruct the original landscape and the evolution of the coastline, with an aim to determining the morphology of the coast and the harbour in the Etruscan period.

The Centro di Ricerca Coordinata ‘ProgettoTarquinia’ of the Università degli Studi di Milano is a LERU (League of European Research Universities) exemplary interdisciplinary research project that involves groups from the Università Statale di Milano (Archaeology, Information and Communication Technologies, Geoarchaeology, Palaeoanthropology), the Politecnico di Milano (Architecture and Topography) and bridges the gap between soft and hard sciences. This project stems from the ‘Progetto Tarquinia’ conceived by Maria Bonghi Jovino in 1982. During the last ten years, our integrated system of tools and services, supported by ICTs (ArchMatrix), through which multidisciplinary domain experts can examine all the typologies of data of a given culture, has made it possible to concentrate on the links between data-sources focusing on the recurrence of association rates within different aspects of material evidence and phenomena. The fields of application of our methodology in the domain of archaeology and epigraphy are multifaceted as regards the inside and outside connections of the Tarquinian heritage, whose necropolis with the famous painted tombs is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Research includes areas of the Civita plateau: the ‘monumental complex’, the Ara della Regina sanctuary, fortifications, and archaeological sites previously explored. In the past ten years, research in the necropolis (roughly 6,000 tombs, of which 400 are painted) and in the surrounding territory has also been implemented and has produced the complete corpus of the painted tombs of Tarquinia. Our holistic approach encompasses archaeological analysis of small (mobile finds), medium (archaeological contexts) and large scale (territory and landscape) architectural analysis and applications for integrated solutions for the cultural heritage, including the first bilingual Virtual Museum dedicated to an Etruscan city.

A new season of studies on the Etruscan-Roman city of Musarna have allowed us to establish that the city was occupied from the end of the 4th century BC up to the beginning of the 7th century AD, and that its foundation depended on a strategic and economic need of the Etruscan metropolis of Tarquinia, of which Musarna maintained its role of colony up approximately to 280 BC, when the entire territory was conquered by Rome. Later, the inscriptions and the epitaphs found in the site and in the nearby necropolis show that until the 1st century BC the only language spoken in Musarna was Etruscan, and that at least throughout the Hellenistic period, the administrative organization remained based on the model of a large Etruscan city. Therefore, the infrastructural networks, only partially restored later on, are fully Etruscan, as are the entire defense system and some public buildings, including a market and a portico built during various stages of the renovation of the square between the 3rd and 2nd century BC, as well as sacred buildings, such as two temples probably dedicated to Hercules and Bacchus. The excellent quality of the documentation of the urban plan made it possible to undertake a study aimed at determining the city’s spatial tracking practice. Some important considerations and insights on the organization of the territory have already emerged from this study and, in particular, we were able to verify on a territorial basis the size of the design module which had already identified on an urban scale. While this may already be considered an important result, the evidence of a design set on particular geometric properties prompts the investigation to highlight particular aspects of the Etruscan plan.

Digital techniques and cultural heritage connect, in an innovative way, new and old within the Humanities. In this new project, an Etruscan townscape will be recreated; modelled results created by the 4D Research Lab will be integrated in an Archaeological Park and Museum in such a way that international scholars and visitors can acknowledge and study 3D reconstructions of a series of Etruscan houses within their successive phases of creation, function, reception, destruction, and reconstruction. Acquarossa is an Etruscan town near Viterbo, Italy. Excavations carried out by the Swedish Institute in Rome revealed a series of Etruscan houses, inhabited from the 8th century BC until the middle of the 6th century BC, when the town was suddenly and inexplicably abandoned. The houses were left to crumble and the remains of the foundations, the walls and the decorated roofs, as well as the thousands of household utensils, were all found in situ. It is one of the very few examples of an intact Etruscan townscape, with a unique set of family dwellings from the past. The remnants of the houses were partially reconstructed in the 1980s and covered with soil, but others were left to be destroyed by weather conditions. The site was left to vanish completely. Since 2014, the 4D Research Lab of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam has been involved in an interdisciplinary research project, in collaboration with the private partner Azienda Agrituristica Raffaele Rocchi, the proprietor of the site, which focuses on the reconstruction of a set of houses in annotated 3D models. The 3D models will be used to build ‘actual’ guesthouses at the site itself, for which permission from the Soprintendenza per i Beni archeologici del Lazio e dell’Etruria Meridionale has been granted. The project aims to analyse the house architecture, roof decoration and building processes through 3D modelling and scanning.

Nowadays, archaeology and modern 3D modelling and representation technologies form an unbreakable bond, considered essential and indispensable by many experts and scholars. Although with different goals and purposes, new hardware and software available and specially designed web platforms allow the archaeologist adequately trained to create, visualize, analyze, and share 3D data derived from computer graphics or from image- and range-based acquisition procedures. Currently, a very important topic is the relationship between user and 3D model: from the simple passive fruition, we are moving increasingly towards a real interaction within immersive virtual environments. In this sense, the contribution of the archaeologist is critical to determine what to display and what to interact with, according to the end user and his skills and knowledge. In fact, the following case studies related to sites, monuments and artefacts of the Etruscan town of Volterra represent the evolution of this interaction/relationship, helping to make the fruition of archaeological evidence, that at present is still difficult to access and understanding, easier and more interesting.

The Po Valley was occupied by the Etruscans starting in the 9th century BC. This presence experienced a significant transformation from the mid-6th century BC, when the territory underwent a widespread colonisation process, which brought about a new pattern in the organization of the landscape. A network of farms and secondary settlements appeared and expanded around both old and new cities. Through the structuring power and the analytical potential of GIS, this research develops new perspectives on the reconstruction of the ancient landscape. In addition to cultural aspects closely related to Etruscan society, in this study we have taken into consideration the role played by the resources of the territory itself, both from economic and the transport network points of view. First, we briefly present the conceptual and physical structure of the GIS. It includes an archive of all the known sites N of the Apennines (541), dating to between the 6th and 4th century BC (managed in a relational database), and a set of geographic and thematic data of general interest, recorded in the same cartographic reference system, handled with GIS software. Second, on the basis of certain distinctive characteristics of settlements such as the size of the occupied area, the internal organization and the building techniques employed, a possible hierarchical subdivision of the settlements is identified. Further, the optimal pathways between major cities are hypothesised considering factors such as slope and the presence of rivers or streams, and a possible road network is calculated using the MADO model (optimal accumulation model of movement from a given origin). The final aim is to propose a settlement model that can then be compared to the reality of the current archaeological record.

Since 2000 a team from Ghent University has achieved intensive non-invasive intra-site prospections on four abandoned Roman towns in central Adriatic Italy (Marche Region): the coastal colony of Potentia and the inland municipia of Ricina, Trea and Septempeda. These urban surveys include total coverage geophysical prospections (such as GPR, geomagnetic and earth resistance approaches), low altitude aerial photography (including NIR photography with drone and helikite), geomorphological augerings, surface artifact collection, and micro-topographical field measurements. A GIS-based integration of all survey data, maps and re-studied legacy data has procured a formidable database for the computer-aided digital 3D mapping and interpretation of these complex ancient sites. The methodological acquisitions and archaeological results not only contribute to the understanding of Roman urbanization in this part of Italy, but also support and innovate the use of integrated approaches to geospatial mapping and analysis of ancient urban environments. Based on earlier experiences with 3D visualizations of the abandoned Roman town of Ammaia in Lusitania, as part of the EC funded Project ‘Radiography of the Past’ (http://www2.radiopast.eu/), the project in Adriatic Italy moves now towards presenting the new data in digital formats that allow specialists from archaeology and cultural heritage management, as well as the wider public to immerse into the visual world of Roman Late Republican and Imperial townscapes of a whole valley and its coastal environment.

The object area of the study was analysed with a geographical and geo-archaeological approach, integrating the data by using geomatic techniques (Satellite Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System). The processing of the data of the high resolution Satellite images allowed us to discover that in the karst environment, like the one in which Burnum was established, the areas with a higher humidity and vegetation concentration are the results of the anthropic action due to frequentation in the Roman Age. The infrastructure and buildings, the earth moving conducted to raise the original natural surface levels, and the subsequent collapse of buildings during the stage when the site was abandoned, determined the formation of a significant substrate in the area. Thanks to the results of the surveys and data, the positive responses of the image analysis through the Band Ratio and the enhancement procedures highlighted the differences in the soil’s patterns/weaving. This method of investigation, the results of which will be verified by carrying out targeted surveys, suggests the presence of residential infrastructure (canabae) in the area surrounding the Roman site and especially along the main roads. Therefore, the archaeological site of Burnum, today corresponding to approximately 8 ha, could be doubled, adding even further to the importance of the role that the city had in this part of the Roman province of Dalmatia.

The paper focuses on some important results obtained by an integrated approach using archaeological evidence, papyrological sources and different kinds of technologies in order to reconstruct the urban development of the site of Bakchias, located in the north-eastern part of the Fayyum region (Egypt). The Mission of Bologna University has excavated ancient Bakchias at Kom Umm el-Athl for over twenty years. In particular, the latest studies, conducted in partnership with Sapienza University of Rome since 2005, have revealed several new elements which are useful for reconsidering the urban development of the kome. In 2011, a GIS was constructed not only in order to store and manage the large quantity of data collected during these years, but also to analyse and process the information and to optimise the research goals. Indeed, the latest-field activities have brought to light numerous structures, both public buildings and private houses in different sectors of the archaeological area. At the same time, an analysis of the papyrological and epigraphic sources was carried out so as to comprehend the useful information about the spatial content, activities and buildings recorded for the settlement. The research was completed using different surveying approaches. All the data thus obtained were merged together in a GIS environment, in order to collect and manage all the information and to integrate the individual elements in a coherent workflow process. Spatial or distributional analysis of the data relating to the site enabled us to draw a series of thematic and phase maps of the Bakchias site. The execution of these diachronic plans, representing different chronological phases of the town, allowed us to evaluate the historical development of the site and urban plan transformations.

The Asculum Project started in 2012 by the Bologna University in agreement with the former Soprintendenza per iBeni Archeologici delle Marche and the Municipality of Ascoli Piceno, mainly as a project of urban archaeology and preventative archaeology in a city which has been inhabited for a very long period of time. A proper integrated methodology and the combination of a wide range of data, including that gathered from geophysical surveys, archaeological digs, historic cartography, bibliographic and archival data, allowed us to reconstruct the cityscape during the Roman Age and its development over the centuries. The understanding of the ancient urban landscape also included a detailed morphological study aimed at the reconstruction of the Roman paleosurface, carried out using data derived from coring samples and stratigraphic digs. In parallel, particular attention was directed to the modern 3D documentation of the historical buildings of the city, by means of laser scanner and the analysis of the stratigraphy of the surviving walls. The new surveys covered, in particular, the still extant Roman buildings, such as the temples incorporated by the churches of San Venanzio and San Gregorio Magno, as well as the Sostruzioni dell’Annunziata. These last acquisitions made it possible to reconstruct the overall layout and urban plan of the town during the Roman Age, as well as to shed new light on the conformation of the ancient landscape at the time of the oldest Piceni settlement. One of the most interesting aspects of the operating practices applied in the project was to reconcile the needs for preservation and research with the aim of a sustainable urban development.

The Iberian town of Ullastret (6th-2nd centuries BC), in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula, is one of the most important Iron Age archaeological sites in the north-western Mediterranean. It consists of two residential areas, Puig de Sant Andreu and Illa d’enReixac. Separated by only 300 m, together they make up the capital of the Iberian tribe known as the Indiketes, mentioned by classical authors such as Avienus, Ptolemy and Strabo. Decades of continuous archaeological investigation, and especially the geophysics surveys undertaken in recent years, have given us an overall view of the urban structure of this dipolis and its immediate territory, which was occupied and exploited intensively starting mainly in the 4th century BC. This high degree of theoretical knowledge led us to propose the creation of a virtual reconstruction of the whole complex, as well as its contextualisation in its geomorphologic and landscape surroundings. This 3D modelling is an excellent research tool that permits the formulation-validation of hypotheses for architectural reconstruction. It is also especially useful for the creation of applications that add to our knowledge of this heritage site and aid in its presentation and dissemination.

The project described in this paper was started in 2012 and concerns the study of the relationship between the urban and suburban districts of the Phoenician and Punic city of Tharros (Cabras, Oristano). The structures of Phoenician and Punic Tharros have been largely cancelled by the Roman occupation. For this reason it is very difficult to determine the original function of many of the neighbourhoods during the Carthaginian period. The archaeological excavation primarily involved the southern necropolis of Capo San Marco. The cemetery must still be fully explored and understood under several aspects, mainly because of the devastation of the site caused by the repeated plundering of the ancient tombs which occurred during the 19th century. In addition to the new dig activities, a 3D topographical survey aimed at the complete documentation of the site and at the virtual rebuilding of the Phoenician and Punic funerary landscape was completed. Another goal of the project is the insertion of this sector of the promontory into the usual tourist route, in order to foster the public fruition of Capo San Marco, while continuing to adopt proper scientific methods and modern techniques. In this direction, geophysical prospecting surveys were carried out in the southern sector of the Capo San Marco, near the so-called ‘Rustic Temple’, in order to assess human presence in the farthest point of the Sinis peninsula (characterised by the presence of the Late Punic ruins of a probable light-house with sacred functions), and across the whole isthmus Sa Codriola towards the hill of San Giovanni, with the aim of analysing the northern boundary of the cemetery and its relationship to the city. The Punic-Roman settlement is now enclosed in the archaeological park, which is a fraction of what was supposed to be the administrative capital of Carthage in Sardinia. 3D modelling and virtual reconstructions were focused also on the residential Punic and Roman area inside the park. The integrated application of the most advanced topographical and geophysical techniques to the site greatly contributed to the recording and understanding of the ancient landscape.

Located in the heartland of Central Asia, Samarkand has always been an economic, cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious hub along the ancient Silk Road. A regional approach, based on a GIS remote sensing assessment followed by field validation, was used here to reconstruct the urban evolution of Samarkand in connection with its hinterland. The basic archaeological features in the landscape (anthropic mounds, canals and burials) allowed us to reconstruct the main forms of land use and resource exploitation according to site distribution and chronology. If Samarkand was established as early as the Achaemenid period (late 6th century BCE), the evidence dated to that time from its hinterland is scarce. A first significant increase occurred during the post-Hellenistic centuries (3rd-1st centuries BCE), and reached the peak at the time of the most intense trade along the Silk Road just before the major changes following the Arab conquest of the early 8th century CE. Data also demonstrated how the development of Samarkand must be closely linked with a proper exploitation of its territory. A massive and complex irrigation system in the floodplain ensured the supply of water necessary to develop extensive farming and daily-life activities, while rain-fed foothills were used as pastures.

Numana is one of the most important centers for the Picenian civilization and prospered in the Marche and Abruzzo regions during the Iron Age. Almost all of the archaeological evidence found until now refers to the necropoleis spread over a broad territory, while data concerning inhabited areas are quite scarce. Although findings are plenty, the study of Ancient Numana is quite incomplete. As a matter of fact, all the published materials are related to single burials or finds and there are no overall studies on its territory. A recent research project involving a wider sector of the largest Numana necropolis (Quagliotti-Davanzali), has not been published yet but offers a detailed description since the excavation documentation is available. The project sets out to consider burials as organized systems, offering information on cultural transformations and on the social organization of the ancient community. The systematic analysis of the data from the burial and the single funerary sets - to be organized in a specific GIS - will be accompanied by an investigation of the ancient landscape in its many components - necropolis and inhabited area - in its diachronic development, thanks to the results of other recent analyses carried out in the Numana territory (geomorphology, GIS of the archaeological map, new surveys of the territory). The scope of the project is therefore to analyze times, ways of arrangements, shapes of the Ancient Numana, in its definition of a territorial, inhabited, rural space, by using methods and techniques to record and read new data, to build knowledge in a scenario which can be integrated with results coming from future research.

The Agrigento: insula III Project began in 2016 thanks to an agreement between the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico Valle dei Templi di Agrigento and DiSCi - Bologna University; it aims to document an entire sector of the Hellenistic-Roman quarter, in a three-year period. The main goal is to start a systematic study of private housing from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity and, at the same time, provide a critical understanding of the town planning scheme in this part of the town, which still lacks a modern archaeological and topographical documentation. The interpretation of the previous documentation is the starting point, along with new mapping with laser scanning and a systematic campaign of geophysical investigations to obtain a BIM. As the Bologna University tradition teaches, modern technologies can answer precise historical and archaeological questions: what are the primary phases of the town map? Which one is the starting module of each lot and what are the changes in different ages? Is it possible to reconstruct the original architecture of Hellenistic houses? What is the relationship between this quarter and the rest of the town? The integration of traditional investigational techniques with more recent ones is the methodological assumption of the project, in order to solve the analysis of the complex stratigraphy of the setting, which was inhabited for at least a millennium, from the Archaic to the Middle Ages.

In 2015 the Department of History and Cultures of the Bologna University took part in the Grande Progetto Pompei - Piano della Conoscenza, with the task of providing a modern and complete documentation of the so-called Lotto 3 in Pompeii. The new survey was carried out by means of integrated innovative diagnostic survey techniques in order to provide a total documentary research of the whole sector. In 2016 a new project was started in agreement with the competent Superintendency, and focused on the study and preservation of the House of Obellio Firmo, included in the Lotto 3 of the Roman city. The new research contemplates an in-depth analysis of the building, employing systematic laser scanning and photogrammetry methods to generate an accurate 3D model of the house. This model is going to constitute the starting point for the further analysis of the wall stratigraphies and for the mapping and monitoring of the structures’ state of decay. The full-scale analytical documentation of the building also includes a detailed geophysical mapping of all the accessible domestic spaces, by using the ground penetrating radar technique. The preliminary results achieved by the non-invasive prospecting survey, integrated with the analysis of the surviving walls and building techniques, supply valid information for the archaeological interpretation of the house’s history. In order to allow the management and sharing of the information collected, the data are going to be organised within a building information model (BIM) with a triple objective: the reconstruction of a fragment of the ancient urban landscape in Pompeii during the oldest phase, with particular attention directed to the Samnitic period; the outlining of a precise strategy of intervention for the restoration and preservation of the House of Obellio Firmo; the re-opening of the building to sightseeing tours and its restitution to public use.

In Valencia, near the Cathedral, the Almoina Archaeological Center is the most important excavation area in the city. The buildings dated to Late Antiquity found here were the main ones of this period. The Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Mausoleum, the Memorial of Saint Vincent martyrdom, some reused Roman buildings (Curia, Asklepieion), some necropoleis and other minor constructions have been identified. We are also aware of a large but incomplete Episcopal Complex (we have not yet identified the bishop’s palace). Little by little this important quarter of the town has been reconstructed infographically. The virtual reconstruction project of Valencia was begun in 1999. In that year we presented the first proposal of the reconstruction of the city during the Roman Republican, Roman Empire and Late Antiquity periods. New and up-dated versions with new archaeological remains and the applications of technological advances were made in 2003 and 2007. For this work, which is still in progress, we have always followed the same methodology. We are now able to present the latest proposal (2016-2017) about the exterior and interior appearance of the main important quarter in Valentia around 600 AD.

The interest of archaeological research on the Phlegraean Fields, in the Gulf of Naples, has been often concentrated on different topics: monumental architecture, thermalism, coastal otium villas. However, we are still missing a reasonable reconstruction of the ancient landscapes of the area with special regard to the peninsula between Baiae and Misenum. The recent PhD project at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has had the task of filling in the gap in local modern archaeology, and shifting the level of analysis from the ‘site’ to the ‘territory’: the study of individual monuments and surviving archaeological assemblages of the Roman town of Misenum, the main harbour for the Imperial navy, is now a part of the investigation of the urban organization of the municipium. The use of a dynamic and multidisciplinary research strategy has led to the creation of a new archaeological map for the area being investigated.

The remains of the medieval town of Castelmonardo (Calabria, Italy) are located on a hill, a few kilometers SE from the modern town of Filadelfia (Vibo Valentia). Since the 1970s archaeological excavations have been carried out in selected areas of the hill. However, a systematic archaeological investigation of the whole archaeological site has never been conducted before. The paper presents the preliminary results of the first archaeological prospection conducted in Castelmonardo by means of advanced remote sensing techniques, with the goal of achieving a first GIS-based digital mapping of the archaeological site. The recently developed UAV LiDAR technology, consisting in the use of high precision laser scanners mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, was applied to realize a high resolution digital terrain model (DTM) of the site. Integrating the LiDAR data with web GIS based aerial images, a preliminary archaeological interpretation of the whole archaeological site was conducted, offering a suitable base for further analysis and virtual reconstructions. The work presented here was conducted as part of a recently initiated research project focused on Castelmonardo, led by the Department of Art History and Performing Arts - Sapienza University of Rome, and conducted in cooperation with DigiLab Research and Services - Sapienza University of Rome, Istituzione Comunale Castelmonardo - Filadelfia (Italy), the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology - Vienna (Austria), Virtutim srls and the Italian company OBEN s.r.l.

The use of interactive storytelling by museums and heritage sites lends to the creation of experiences that support visitors in engaging emotionally with the objects on display. Finding ways to connect to the cultural content is even more important for visitors of archaeological sites due to the often fragmentary nature of the exhibits, which can leave them wondering what was once there and how it relates to them. In this paper, we describe the creation of a prototype mobile storytelling experience that attempts to explore a more emotive kind of storytelling in cultural contexts. The prototype was evaluated in a preliminary study that took place at the archaeological site of the Ancient Agora of Athens. The observations provide insights for the design of future iterations of such emotive storytelling experiences.

In this paper, we reviewed 20 years of development of 3D based IS to support archaeological and AH artefact knowledge, management and communication and their theoretical work basis. In detail, we illustrated our experiences showing the advantages and limits we had observed after extensive use. In conclusion, we have illustrated a new paradigm based on IoT-related technologies, potentially able to overcome existing problems, and the theoretical foundation of the new framework that has been designed, the concept of the Smart Cultural Object, sources and recipients of advanced information and related technological underpinning.

Computer graphics and three-dimensional modelling techniques have extended the possibilities of archaeologists in the creation of virtual reconstruction of ancient sites and monuments. Modern computational systems allow the implementation of computer-generated scenarios tailored on human cognitive capacities. Although Virtual Archaeology is not a novelty in the panorama of archaeological methods, there is no agreement among scholars on the minimal parameters necessary to virtually rebuild an ancient context, nor is there any requirement needed to guarantee the accuracy and the effectiveness of the final reconstruction; the strength of a model is based mainly on the capacity of the archaeologist to check the final result in terms of comparison between interpretations and hypotheses. The paper aims at exploring how the archaeologists could perform their work in a computational laboratory thanks to shared 3D models. The case study selected is the recent virtual reconstruction of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum, a monument - 250 years after its discovery - still largely unexplained. The building is completely buried by volcanic lava save for part of its entrance porch. It was extensively explored using tunnels and looted by its early excavators. Different scholars have rebuilt the monument mainly on the basis of two plans, drawn in the 18th century, and few notes taken by the archaeologists during the exploration. The 3D model, carried out by integrating cad modelling with close-range photogrammetry, is intended to highlight some controversial parts of the reconstructions. Metadata associated to the digital replica describe the physical object and register all phases from data-acquisition to data-visualization in order to allow the validation of the model and the use or re-use of the digital resource.

This paper presents the preliminary results of a laser scanning survey carried out at the archaeological mound site of Arslantepe, located in eastern Turkey. The Italian Archaeological Expedition in Eastern Anatolia has largely brought to light its long history spanning from the 6th millennium BCE to the Byzantine period. The most outstanding evidence unearthed so far is a group of remarkably well preserved monumental buildings erected during the final centuries of the 4th millennium BCE, when the economic and political centralization reached its climax. Recently, the whole area became an open-air museum protecting the archaeological structures from climatic stress and enabling visitors to have a glimpse of the monumental complex as it was. The laser scanning survey was aimed at aiding the interpretation of the archaeological features through extremely accurate measurements as well as to provide the researchers with structural and condition monitoring of the surfaces overtime. Given the ever-changing plastic shape that mud-brick buildings take on over the time, this survey turned out to be an interesting challenge for testing laser scanner technology, since it is not easy to connect to any regular design.

Side is one of the best preserved cities of Antiquity in the historical Pamphylia area of Anatolia, current Antalya, Turkey. This archaeological site shows numerous standing structures and monuments spanning from the 7th century BC to the 12th century AD. The aerial and terrestrial survey conducted in 2016 was centred on the so called Episcopal Palace and the Fountain area with a total surveyed surface of 5,900 mq. The aim of the work was to analyse and recreate the existing structures in a 3D environment to help in later research questions like architectural features, building construction design and upgrades or location of the palace within the urban area. This paper intends to highlight the value of an accurate ground control point network to record an ancient urban site and its advantages when using CAD and GIS software. Moreover, it will also focus on the methodology used to capture the data used on the area of the Episcopal Palace to create an accurate 3D reconstruction of the remaining structures (with Structure from Motion) for further analysis and interpretations; merge classic survey methods (Total Station and Global Positioning Systems) with relatively new methodologies and hardware (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle); check and test the accuracy and the derived errors (data surveying gaps, traversing adjustments, coordinate and projection systems) that arise during post-processing (ellipsoid/geoid highs differences, noise reduction, fusion between datasets). Possible uses of the created/resulting data from the georeferenced point clouds, the model as a visual tool (orthophotos and 3D Mesh) for classic planning (elevations and sections) and its utility in a GIS environment (ArcScene) are also discussed. At the end of the paper report, some questions about the utility of the 3D reconstructions and models in Heritage as well as their utility for the archaeological record will be discussed.

Archaeological site monitoring and updating can nowadays benefit from the contribution of geomatic techniques. In recent times, image-based and range-based measurement systems have become increasingly interesting in excavation processes for monitoring purposes and large scale mapping, both from a terrestrial and aerial point of view. The paper will focus on the great challenge of monitoring sites over time, integrating and conforming multiple data coming from previous metric survey projects and image data collected in the past for different purposes. The test-site was the complex archaeological landscape of the ancient city of Hierapolis in Phrygia on which the MAIER – Italian Archaeological Mission of Hierapolis has operated since the 1960s and where the Politecnico di Torino conducted several survey campaigns. A set of multi-temporal datasets acquired in a series of campaigns in 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, 2015 are presented, as well as their 3D multi-sensor models; the older dense models generated with archival images are intended to be compared and integrated with newer models generated by the LiDAR scans in 2012 and the UAV systems employed in the last mission in 2015. In particular, the case study was the massive complex of the ancient Bath-Church in the northern part of the city below the Northern Necropolis, and Building A of the Apollo Sanctuary, in the central Sacred Area near the Ancient Theatre. In these sites, many different sensors have been experimented with over the years and preliminary multi-temporal data integration has been tested in order to up-date and improve older archival records based on collected images and related to newer and updated documentation projects.

The paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary project which aimed at the dissemination of some archaeological remains producing multimedia contents from multisensor surveyed 3D data. The scope of this application pertained to the use of 3D detailed models as a base for some video-installations with the aim to arouse the visitors’ emotions and improve their museum experience. This work has been applied to the Arch of Augustus located in the archaeological site of Susa and to two ancient Roman marble statues, found in the city of Susa in 1802 and now displayed in the Archaeological Museum of Turin. The Arch of Augustus is in a remarkable state of conservation. Its decorated frieze tells about the peace between the Romans and the Celts but it is difficult to see for visitors at the ground level. A multisensor 3D survey, by means of laser scanning technique and photogrammetric method, made it possible to process a detailed 3D textured model, which provided the base for the creation of a life-size model to be placed in the Museum of Susa on which a designed didactic video map is projected, which explains the meaning of the frieze. The two statues, known as ‘busti loricati di Susa’ and representing two Roman emperors, were surveyed with a photogrammetric method with the aim of processing two 3D models representing the statues before the 19th century restoration, on the basis of archival sources. These models provided the base for a video installation for the museum which simulates a holographic projection and explains the different armour parts highlighting them in sequence. Nowadays modern metric survey technologies allow us to collect and process very detailed 3D models able to satisfy a wide variety of applications field, from specialized representation to didactic final uses in museums exhibitions.

The paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary project related to the 3D documentation, dissemination and valorisation of archaeological sites. The project has two goals: to test a novel and economic pipeline for the acquisition of survey data, and to promote the study and appreciation of archaeological areas, among public and scientists, using the HBIM workflow. The 3D survey of archaeological sites is still an expensive and time-consuming task. In this project, a low-cost approach to 3D survey is presented and compared to a standard photogrammetry pipeline based on high-resolution photographs. The pipeline is based on a consumer-level hand-held RGB-D sensor as Microsoft Kinect. The quality of the digitized raw 3D models is evaluated by comparing them to a photogrammetry-based reconstruction and then the acquired data is elaborated in software BIM in order to create a semantically enriched model of the archaeological site. This method has been verified on the archaeological park of Liternum (Campania, Italy), a Roman forum that includes a capitolium, a theatre, a basilica and some others commercial spaces. Using a reflex camera for the photogrammetric survey, it was compared to the Kinect acquisition. In this way, we obtained a 3D model that is imported in a BIM software such as Autodesk Revit. Every element is modelled as a parametric object so the final model is enriched with additional information: geometric dimensions, material, text documents, CAAD reconstruction hypotheses, drawings, photos, etc. These methods allowed us to better understand the site, perform analyses, see interpretative processes, communicate historical information and promote the heritage location.

In the past twenty years archaeological survey has changed radically thanks to the progress in the field of technology, in particular concerning 3D massive acquisition methods. A variety of data acquisition modes, based on active and passive sensor systems, is increasingly easier to access and use to document cultural heritage. The scientific debate focuses primarily on two issues: the use of free or proprietary software, and the control over data quality, in terms of metric accuracy, by comparing 3D image-based acquisition methods with consolidated methods (laser scansion and/or topographic survey). Collecting, interpreting and filing a large amount of information helps to define a system we can use to understand our archaeological heritage. The system is based on the scientific process used to achieve a dual objective: first, to document acquisition using a heterogeneous set of data (x, y, z and RGB) and metadata (information processing) and guarantee repeatability; secondly, to ensure data quality during acquisition and processing. Data processing obtained using 3D massive acquisition methods makes it possible to build models characterized by a biunivocal correspondence to the real object, studied from a geometric and spatial point of view. The study focuses on the shift from quantitative data, acquired in a semi-automatic manner, to qualitative data, meticulously controlled as regards to uncertainty. In this framework, all branches of the Science of Representation ensure metric, spatial and formal control of the built models. The study of the 13th century Gates of the city of Bologna have so far led to the development of a scientific process providing important data about metric quality vis-à-vis, the scale of the model.

This study explores the integration of photogrammetry, laser-scanning, GIS (Geographical Information Systems), and textual analysis to create a more holistic understanding of the effect of the landscape on medieval fortress design, position, and strategy in the area of Kaiserslautern, Germany, during the Middle Ages. The case study is composed of six defensive structures that served as key components to a larger network of fortresses built throughout the region of the Pfalz from 1050-1300 AD during the period of the High Middle Ages. All six structures will be modelled and linked into the digital landscape in GIS, with contextual information derived from historical documents creating a more complete depiction of the medieval territory once controlled by these prominent structures. The interdisciplinary nature of the project spanning art history, archaeology, anthropology, and computer science makes it both innovative and experimental. Access to high resolution models of the structures without having to be physically present at the sites is a significant advantage both for researching the architecture of the structures and for digital preservation efforts. The integrative technological approach will help determine the historical environment and efficacy of the buildings, potentially shedding light on the original designs that have been lost throughout the centuries.

The ancient city of Nora was a Phoenician, Punic and Roman settlement rising on a peninsula in the south-western coast of Sardinia. Since 1990, the University of Padova has been carrying on an interdisciplinary research project of excavation, architectural analysis, historical reconstruction and cultural promotion of tourism in this site. The excavations allow us to increase our knowledge of Middle Imperial Roman urban planning and to get a better understanding of the whole city and its history; the restoration of excavated monuments using gravels with different colours helps more than 60,000 tourists every year to recognize the function of different areas. In spite of this, visitors experience difficulty in understanding a landscape of ruins with barely visible evidence. Thus, a complete virtual reconstruction of the ancient city has become essential. 3D models of the Phoenician and Roman settlement have been developed, reshaping archaeological plans produced in 25 years by Universities that work in the site. The main monuments of the Roman city and the major crossroads have been rendered in greater detail, using sample-based textures that give a photorealistic effect and implementing the models with furniture and decorations selected through reliable sources of information. 3D reconstructions are now available for tourist groups led by a guide in the Nora Virtual Tour: stereoscopic images have been rendered and uploaded in an app for mobile headsets that provides immersive virtual reality for the users. The guide controls the devices with a tablet using a Bluetooth connection: at the beginning of the visit, the tourists can view equirectangular panoramas of the ruins taken from a helicopter, then they are accompanied to hot-spots where the ancient monuments are shown in an evocative Roman reconstruction.

OpenHistoryMap aspires to become the open source geographical system for archaeological information, both from an academic and an educational point of view. There are many fragmented online web-GIS experiences targeted at very specific projects, but no tool enables a broader overview of both research and studies. For these reasons, in order to create an Open Access platform, one of the most important aspects is the creation of tools that can facilitate both the sharing of archaeological spatial and temporal information as well as the easy reuse of the generated data. OpenHistoryMap is supposed to create a tool that is both a map of the archaeological world as well as a repository for the connected data within structured research papers. The project finds its roots first of all within the collective experience of ‘archaeology’ that refers to non-expert users, and in the second place within the academic scientific experience of research centres and universities. While the first approach gives an integrated and reliable picture of the cultural item, the second provides consistent and solid datasets with a perspective on the mixture of specific types of information.

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.

From an archaeological perspective, one of the sites that best represents the western area of the province of Pavia, Lomellina, is Gropello Cairoli, due to the large number of discoveries, which had already been made by the end of the 19th century. Archaeological data chiefly concern the necropoleis, located in various parts of Gropello, while traces regarding settlements are scarcer. The chronological span goes from the end of the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD. Until now, the attention of experts has been focused principally on the detailed analysis of single necropoleis and on the numerous funerary furnishings, while a general overview of the development of Gropello has rarely been offered. A reconstruction of the chronological evolution of the territory and a historical-topographic synthesis has been proposed using a Database Management System and a Geographical Information System. All available spatial data, consisting of historical maps, aerial photos and sketches, were inserted in the GIS platform and the single burials were georeferenced, wherever possible, using the system of topographic overlay. At the same time all the information of non-spatial type, including the data relative to the artefacts and the burials, were fed into a specially created Relational Database. Therefore, it was possible to create specific queries, underlining particular chronological phases and analyzing the distribution of the evidence. The interpretation of the resulting data has suggested the presence of a widespread distribution of small settlements, with the funerary areas along the roadsides. An important demographic growth between the second half of the 1st century BC and the first half of the 1st century AD is evident, after which there is a slow decline suggested by the increasing rarity of archaeological finds.

Monte Bibele is an archaeological settlement of the 4th and 3rd century BC with a village, a necropolis and a votive deposit. Earlier, during the 14th and 13th century BC, in the same area there was a small village of sub-Apennine facies attributable to the late Bronze Age. The Second Iron Age settlement is just a part of a larger demographic reorganization of the Apennines, as is also proved by the recent discovery of the Monterenzio Vecchio necropolis and votive deposit, on the opposite side of Idice Valley. These are small settlements located close to the main routes of both sides of the Apennines and populated by Italic (Etruscans, Umbrians, Ligurians, etc.) and transalpine peoples (Celts) allied to control the surroundings. Of the architectural structures of Monte Bibele, the best known are those of the village, in the part of the massive called ‘Pianella di Monte Savino’. It has an Etruscan foundation, over an area of about 7,000 m2, in part still to be explored, and documented in its final phase in the late 3rd century BC, when the village was sealed by a sudden fire. Archaeologists of Te.M.P.L.A. (Research Center for Multimedia Technologies Applied to Archaeology of Bologna University’s Department of History and Cultures) over the last decade, have made many models of houses at Pianella. Reconstructions are based on direct feedbacks (archaeological data) and indirect comparisons (historical sources, traditional architecture). The first model was virtual, followed by a real one made near the Museum of Monterenzio, and by the two new houses made directly in situ, thanks to EU funds for the development of Emilia Romagna used for renovating the archaeological and naturalistic area of Monte Bibele (Por Fesr 2007/2013).

The Catacombs of Santa Lucia are one of the oldest and most important monuments in the Christian communities of Siracusa and Sicily in the late Roman period. The name of the complex derives from a tradition, according to which Saint Lucy was buried here, after her martyrdom in the early 4th century AD, under the reign of Diocletian. A large underground cemetery extends beneath the homonymous square. The cemetery gradually expanded from the 3rd to the 5th century AD, as it incorporated pre-existing constructions once used for funerary, religious and industrial purposes, by transforming them into monumental burial chambers. One of the most significant structures is the so-called ‘Pagan Shrine’: a chamber that is dated between the 3rd century BC and 1st century AD, prior to the foundation of the cemetery and frescoed with worldly themes and pagan deities. The Shrine is located in the South-western corner of Regio C, an area that is hard and rather dangerous to reach, never opened to the public and visited only by few scholars over the past decades. The excavation project undertaken in the years 2011-2015 by the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, in association with the Arcadia University and the University of Catania, led to the development of the first virtual replica of the Shrine, using Digital Photogrammetry. This new approach facilitated an accurate examination of both its structure and its decoration, allowing us to propose a new theory about the original purpose of the room, traditionally regarded by scholars as a place for worshipping Zeus Peloros.

This work originated from a simple question: is it possible to reconstruct a destroyed architectural decorative element starting from documents that describe its details, shape and constitutive materials? An important limitation in the past was the lack of technologies and materials that could replicate an object like this in detail. Only a few years ago technology was not yet able to ensure accurate reconstruction characterized by an adequate formal aesthetic level both in terms of materials and finishes. Nowadays, this gap has been filled thanks to the development of Computer Numerical Control machines (CNC) in production processes. In this contribution, we present part of the restoration of Villino Florio in Palermo, built by the architect Ernesto Basile on behalf of the Florio family between 1899 and 1902 and partially destroyed by a fire in 1962: it is one of Italy’s first architectural works in the Art Nouveau style, and is considered a masterwork within the European panorama. The restoration, directed by the Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. Di Palermo, also involved the monumental staircase, with a complex wooden floral pattern (‘ramage’) used to decorate the ceiling. Starting from the relief of the environment and from the old photographic documents, a 3D model of the ramage was retrieved. This formed the basis of information necessary for the subsequent reproduction of the subject with CNC machines on oak modules, assembled and finished just as they appeared in the photographs before the fire. A numerical approach made it possible to control the entire process by adopting structural solutions to avoid overloading the ceiling with excessive weight.

This paper demonstrates how low cost 3D visualization techniques can be easily used for the transmission of historical and cultural content in museum communication strategy. Specifically, we used computer 3D animation graphics to present information about Queen Nefertari, the Maya chapel and the tomb of Kha in the specific exhibition in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. Movie documentaries support the thematic itineraries of the rooms and offer a virtual trip to the places where the goods displayed were found. The same approach was used for the virtual reconstruction of two Pompeian contexts: the House of the Golden Bracelet and the House of Octavius Quartio. Our research allowed us to create an accurate representation of gardens, statues, architectural spaces, and pools with fountains and frescoed rooms, all virtually reproduced in their original context, using communication methods that combine technology with a synthetic and emotional approach. Techniques of close range photogrammetry made it possible to conduct a 3D survey of sixteen statues and other architectural elements; lost artefacts were reconstructed and areas destroyed by the eruption of 79 AD were evoked. The eruption was partially represented, with fluid dynamic simulations and computer graphics effects in order to transmit accurate scientific information in a simple and immediate language developed by lengthy technical experiments. The synthesis imposed by the short duration of the movie required matching all this information with a self-explanatory approach, which allows the visitor to understand the characteristics of the archaeological goods displayed in the exhibition in a general view that repeats colours, sounds and suggestions of the environments destroyed two thousand years ago.

Modern archaeologists often find it difficult to identify the exact position on the field (and on the maps) of the finds brought to light during archaeological excavations, particularly those conducted before the second half of the 20th century. In these cases, in fact, they are obliged to record data and information on their GIS as being unable to locate the correct place, or even the area, of those ancient archaeological investigations. This inability to be precise creates several problems from a topographical point of view and negatively influences the archaeological reconstruction of specific territories or sites. Therefore, how is it possible to correctly locate and, as a result, mark on the map what was discovered or excavated in the recent past? One possible solution is the 3D reconstruction of a modern landscape through the use of the UAV technology and some derived applications, such as digital techniques based on Structure from Motion and Imaged-Based methodologies. The 3D model can be analyzed using the GIS system, and through the analysis of the micro-relief and aerial photos it is possible to use an important tool to locate past archaeological investigations. In this paper, we present the case study of Mount Siri (Anzi, Basilicata), the location of several important archaeological discoveries which were made during the 19th century.

Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of software to create great 3D models of archaeological sites and objects, and there has been plenty of thought and discussion on data models for finds. The results of those efforts have been made public through institutional websites and specific portals, but now, a further step is necessary: the cultural heritage data and (meta)data need to be taken into the semantic web. The Heritage Online Visualisation Engine (further: Heron VE) provides tools for documenting, visualising and disseminating the semantic relations between sites, objects, documentation and narratives. Heron VE is scalable: it can be used to tell the story of a particular archaeological complex, but it can also illustrate relations between sites and objects which are widely separated in both time and space. With Heron VE, dissemination of (meta)data can take many different forms: Heron VE contains modules for presenting and reporting on data, but it can also be used to provide data only, for example in several XML-formats or in N-triples. The designer of Heron VE has 25 years of experience with cultural heritage data in the field of archaeology, museums and libraries and has been working on the structured dissemination of cultural heritage data, first in the semantic web and now within the framework of linked data. This paper will illustrate the journey towards Heron VE, including considerations regarding the adoption, adaptation or rejection of existing data models and ontologies. It will also contain examples. These will mainly be based on data regarding sites of former castles and stately homes in the Netherlands, but it will become very clear that the Heron VE can be applied to many different cultural heritage datasets, including those regarding ancient urban areas.

This paper reports an aspect of the on-going project of my dissertation thesis at the Institute for Classical Archaeology at Charles University in Prague and concerns the application of multi-image photogrammetry technique in the documentation of the Etruscan rock-cut tomb façades. Etruscan rock-cut tombs with decorated façades are located in the inland area of Southern Etruria (currently Tuscany and Lazio, Italy). This paper focuses on the architecture of the tombs dated to the Hellenistic period (from the 4th century BC to the end of the 3rd-beginning of the 2nd century BC), when a significant change in architecture of the tombs took place. The aim of this paper is to show how 3D models acquired with the multi-image photogrammetry technique can serve as a tool for the archaeological analysis of the tomb façades. The acquired data and 3D models can be used for the documentation and digital preservation of the tomb decorations, which are exposed to heavy erosion mainly caused by water and vegetation. This paper also explains how acquired data can serve as well for the creation of the virtual reconstruction and virtual anastylosis of the tomb façades with missing fragments of decorations or fragments scattered around sites or in museums.