The Great Baths were a large and sumptuous public building of late Roman Aquileia, with refined mosaics and inlay-work floors. Today they are completely concealed below cultivated fields, because vaults, walls and their architectural decorations were despoiled already in the Middle Age. Therefore, the university of Udine Archaeological Mission needs to employ both traditional and new technologies to reconstruct their original luxury, their complete layout and the subsequent landscape transformations suffered by the area: a meticulous stratigraphical excavation; the analysis of aerial photographs and historical maps; photogrammetric, laser-scanner and geophysical surveys. Other research projects are involved in the 3D-modelling of the buildings and photorealistic reconstructions of mosaic floors, to prepare multimedia aids for the foreseen opening to the public. All of these works are in progress: the main results and future prospects are presented here.
The article illustrates some activities of LIDA, the Information Laboratory for Art History of the University of Udine. It focuses on a regional pilot project on ICT and cultural heritage, InfoBC. The project is based on the integration of existing electronic databases on the cultural heritage of the Region and the diffusion of data through both Web and mobile phones. The project‟s aim is to develop a multifaceted tool which can be used by local Governments and Institutions to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of
A large number of technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Remote Sensing (RS), geophysical instruments, allows nowadays for fast and reliable automated capture, management and analysis of archaeological data. Beyond the City Walls (BCW) is a landscape archaeology project based in the countryside of the Roman municipium of Aquileia (Italy) that applies and integrates these technologies for the reconstruction of peripheral settlement dynamics in antiquity, trialling concurrently tools that operate as hubs for acquisition of disparate field data.
Integrated remote sensing and geophysical methods can provide detailed information about buried cultural heritage. We implemented an integrated survey protocol (IREGA, Integrated REmote-sensing and Geophysical prospecting for Archaeology) and tested the performance of the method in the area of the ancient Roman town of Aquileia, NE Italy, to define and characterize microareas of archaeological interest starting from macro-area observations. We used electromagnetic (GPR; ground-penetrating radar), magnetic and remote sensing (MIVIS; Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer) to image and characterize buried targets of potential archaeological interest in the depth range between 100 and 350 cm. We identified various geometrically coherent anomalies, possibly related to subsurface structures, through MIVIS data processing and found them in good agreement with the elements reported in the Aquileia archaeological map obtained from documentary evidence and excavations performed in the last century. Ultra High Resolution (UHR) MultiFold (MF) Ground-penetrating Radar (GPR) and magnetic surveys confirmed the MIVIS results and allowed imaging and mapping of buried structure related to different Roman remains (SE sector of the Circus, harbor and residential buildings foundations, roads).
The comparison between historical maps and modern orthophotos can allow to better understand the evolution of the landscape and the territory of Aquileia, and to formulate some hypotheses and remarks about the origins of particular elements.
Basic ideas are presented of a multi-national research project to share data about the Roman city of Aquileia employing the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). A Consortium is proposed to manage the project, adopting the Open-source approach to the software design. The Consortium proposes a common vision of the data which we detail in the paper. There results a shared vocabulary of terms and meanings, as well as standard metadata formats to encode, classify and exchange data from whatever source. A federated system of computer resources realizes and supports the project. We also discuss the results to be realistically expected in short time of a low-cost, joint research effort.
Integrated use of multidisciplinary researches have been applied in the last years for the study of Aquileia archeological sites and, in particular the River Port structures. Since 1992 GPS (Global Positioning System) techniques have been adopted with the aim of linking together various independent topographic networks and georeferencing single relevant points. In 2001 a scientific cooperation between different Institutions and national and international Research Centres has been established and renewed in 2006, in the framework of PICS 3064 CNRS Project. Different 3D topographic, geodetic, remote sensing, laser scanner and geophysical surveys have been performed and analyzed with the principal aim of reconstructing the ancient Aquileia landscape and, in particular, the integrated water system. GIS (Geographical Information System) and WebGIS applications have been implemented by researchers of GeoSNAV Laboratory, University of Trieste, joining all the data on a common cartographic basis, in order to enhance their sharing inside the scientific community.
Geophysical Prospection has yielded remarkable results to the research in Archaeology. Besides the recognition of places, also the earlier uses of a site can be reconstructed. Therefore, the geophysical techniques help to understand the layout of a site and raise new research questions. In this paper, we summarize the main geophysical prospection methods for archaeology: magnetic, radar and resistivity-based techniques. We also present results of combined methods that have been employed for the survey on the Bavarian sites of the “Obergermanisch-raetischer Limes”, frontiers of the Roman empire.
The article illustrates some activities of LIDA, the Information Laboratory for Art History of the University of Udine. It focuses on a regional pilot project on ICT and cultural heritage, InfoBC. The project is based on the integration of existing electronic databases on the cultural heritage of the Region and the diffusion of data through both Web and mobile phones. The project‟s aim is to develop a multifaceted tool which can be used by local Governments and Institutions to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of
Starting from the rich historical documentation of the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia, we provide some examples of crosschecking aerial photography and archival data, especially from cartographic archives: in the immediate Northern outskirts of the city we can assume the existence of residential areas one of which was located right by a production area while evidence obtained by aerial photography both in the North-Eastern and Western sectors refer respectively to a necropolis on the way to Emona and to via Annia, according to archival sources.
The paper deals with the laserscanning and photogrammetric surveying, the 3D photorealistic modeling, and the virtual navigation of the Thodorian mosaic floor the Basilica of Aquileia, the widest and oldest mosaic pavement in the Christian western world. From the acquired data, 18 clouds of 3D point and 158 digital images, a detailed model of such non-planar surface has been obtained and the images have been projected onto it as 3D textures. Finally, some thematic routes have been defined so creating navigation virtual tours to well understand and enjoy the various parts of the mosaic floor.
