During the fifth excavation campaign in the area of the Palace of Villa Adriana conducted by the University of Seville Pablo de Olavide, three fragments of Campana slabs, a type of architectural terracotta not very common in the villa of Tivoli, were found. The following article wishes to describe and analyse the pieces in order to reach a reasoned interpretation. On the basis of inherent and appropriate stylistic and formal comparisons, the contribution focuses on the diffusion of the iconographic model of Victory on a chariot, particularly on terracotta slabs.
During the past years both the political instability and the uncontrolled economic development in the Middle East caused several threats to the cultural heritage, including widespread looting and destruction of hundreds of archaeological sites, looting of museums, flooding of ancient settlements due to the construction of dams, damages to monuments and sites during armed conflicts. Notwithstanding the ongoing difficult condition of fieldwork, a new phase of archaeological research has begun with projects of landscape archaeology, excavations and extensive surveys carried out especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, allowing a detailed reconstruction of the settlement dynamics and historical development in the trans-Tigridian region, from the prehistory to the Islamic period. A new archaeological renaissance contributing to the process of peace-building through the empowerment of strong ties between the local communities and the cultural heritage.
Sri Ksetra, in Myanmar, is an inhabited archaeological area in which rural landscape, widespread built heritage and archaeological evidences are intertwined with presence of numerous villages. In 2014 the three Pyu cities were named as the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Myanmar: despite the premises, Sri Ksetra, Beikthano and Halin were not listed as ‘cultural landscapes’ sites but recognized as ‘cultural’ sites. Field research in 2015 highlighted emerging issues in the management and safeguarding of inhabited archaeological sites. The investigation raises critical issues concerning the conservation and management of the rural landscape as heritage, in view of a sustainable development of the site in favour of those who live there.
Architectural structures are 3D volumes and their features, which are recognized in the field through archaeological investigation (stratigraphic, metric and formal data), are distributed within the three-dimensions. Stratigraphic wall analysis normally needs front elevations or photo-mosaic images to draw the boundaries between each Stratigraphic Unit (SU). The Stratigraphic 3D component is not recorded because it is not taken into account by these supporting documents. With the support of photo-modelling and stereophotogrammetry, instead, it is possible to record the perimeter and volume of each SU in 3D space and also obtain isomorphic reproductions of the detected object. These copies are high quality photo-textured models that provide a complete overview of architectural volumes and the close dimensional framework (length, depth and width) of mouldings and decorative architectural elements. Moreover, the coordinates of any point can be extracted from these models in order to obtain traditional charts (maps, sections, elevations and axonometric views, useful to understand the process of installation of building elements). The purpose of this paper is to describe different techniques capable of acquiring 3D data of wall stratigraphy in order to define new methods of documentation based on the use of photo-modelling and stereophotogrammetry. The data used for this research refer to excavated sites or high-preserved fabrics of different ages and functions such as the late medieval bell-tower of the basilica of San Severo (Classe, Ravenna), the modern tower of Monte Erno (FC) and the church of San Bartolomeo in Tipano (FC). Starting with these cases, in this article we explore some of the technical aspects of data processing like speed, measurement accuracy, information content and equipment cost.
The author illustrates the graphic documentation process that has been developed during the excavations at Sofiana in the Municipality of Mazzarino (CL, Sicily), as part of the Philosophiana Project. The project started in 2012 thanks to the cooperation between the Universities of Cornell, Cambridge and Messina and since the beginning it was necessary to document the excavations speedily, but without the loss of measurement accuracy featuring a well-established methodology of archaeological survey. The pipeline of the work has consisted in digitising archaeological contexts in a GIS platform from an orthophoto produced with 3D photomodeling. This process resulted in an optimal documentation according to the project requirements. The author also focuses on the importance of graphic documentation, which should be as important as the excavation process itself. Despite archaeology having a long tradition in the field of archaeological survey, this process is often perceived as a necessity rather than a key research tool. For this reason surveys are not always carried out by a professional figure, causing a lack of homogeneity in the final data.
The aim of this paper is to present the experience of a photogrammetric survey started in May 2009 to record the current state of some religious buildings involved in the earthquake of April 6th which affected L’Aquila and its municipalities. This experience gave us the opportunity to evaluate and verify a solution for a metric survey of buildings, which is based on photography applied in a post-earthquake scenario. An archaeological recording can become part of a wider process of knowledge and reconstruction, in which there is interaction between several agents (engineers, architects, archaeologists, etc.); in this way the approach to the survey problems was discussed taking into account specific needs. The paper illustrates the process of analysis and synthesis that led to the representation of architectural and archaeological data, and especially attempts to define, through specific case studies, the targeted use of the photogrammetric solution.
Photogrammetric display gives the archaeologist the possibility of personally constructing maps to meet his needs through the selection of features shown, prominence assigned to them and through the accurate and detailed rendering of relief. The aid of computers is very important, both for database construction and for the full utilisation of analytical photogrammetric systems.
The paper has the main role of highlighting the advantages resulting from the combination of different 3D survey methods and how the approaches that involve data and methods fusion can be advantageous in cases where the environment in which one operates is particularly impervious and not very inclined to be faced with traditional solutions. UAV Photogrammetry, TLS and the innovative 3D scanning based on SLAM technology are combined for the investigation and the documentation of a suggestive landscape and archaeological park. The hand held SLAM based scanner, capable of generating the point cloud travelling among complex indoor and outdoor environments, detecting even small defined spaces, has proved its fundamental importance for the knowledge and reconstruction of the landscape of a particular category of ancient heritage: the necropolis of the caves of the Baratti e Populonia park, which lies in a suggestive scenario of rich and dense forest.
The implications of self-organizing phenomena for planning strategies and interventions are a relatively new topic of research that is gaining increasing traction with urban planners and the emerging literature. The problem is that the concept of self-organization is at present applied in a variety of different ways in the contemporary planning debate, a fact that has generated misunderstandings, dubious definitions, and questionable practical suggestions. The aim of this article is to (1) unravel this complex issue by differentiating urban phenomena that are usually all labeled as self-organizing; (2) identify which of them is the most challenging for planning theory and practice, and (3) discuss how planning can productively relate to this form of self-organization.
This handbook synthesizes the most important principles of cultural and environmental formation processes for both students and practicing archaeologists.Formation Process of the Archaeological Record embodies a vision that the cultural past is knowable, but only when the nature of the evidence is thoroughly understood. It shows how the past is accessible in practice by identifying variability introduced by the diverse effects of people and nature that in some sum, form the archaeological record.For students, it is intended as both an introduction and guide in method and theory, field work, and analysis. Practicing archaeologists will find it a valuable checklist of sources of variability when observations on the archaeological record are used to justify inferences.
Locating archaeological cultures in time and space is a major challenge of archaeological research. Despite more than a century of scientific research in archaeology, a satisfactory solution has yet to be proposed. Past attempts to look into the problem focused on sharpening the definition of types of material culture artefacts, a more accurate chronological dating of such objects, various probabilistic methods or GIS solution for defining the time-space borders of archaeological cultures. However, the proposed approaches did not fully consider how the nature of archaeological cultures and their consequent dating and geographic positioning play a crucial role in assigning spatio-temporal borders. We propose to shift the operating logical paradigm in archaeology, from a crisp, Aristotelian-based logic, to fuzzy logic, in our opinion more suitable for reasoning in archaeology. We also introduce the rough sets theory to deal with chronological and geographic positioning of archaeological cultures. Both concepts have, in our opinion, substantial advantages over the traditional algebra and logic rules (implicitly) applied so far.
Formalisation of data, which is the base of encoding procedures, raises a number of problems which should not be solved, as it is usually done, through generic intuition. Starting from Gardin's discussion of the «compilations», as distinct from «explanations», and from Gordon Childe's late epistemological propositions, the formalisation is defined as the production of structures of symbols which perfectly match the archaeological evidente as the scholars sees it. This may be done by means of different types of language; using computers requires modelling techniques. They depend on our appreciation of the evidence itself, and semiotics helps us in distinguishing between material evidence and its symbolic meaning.
Central to the arguments developed in the paper is an examination of the contextual approach to the interpretation of archaeological data. The management systems for excavation data are seen as strategic instruments for realising the potential of the means of analysis and interpretation of contexts. In this regard, the problem of which standards to adopt in the definition of finds, in particular portable items, becomes crucial. The paper discusses the most suitable criteria for the creation of dictionaries (structures for cataloguing) aimed at evidencing the functional aspects of portable finds, as an instrument for the best interpretation of contexts. The experience of the Archaeological Computer Laboratory of Lecce University is presented.
The piazza Pozzo Dorico substructures in Cori (the ancient Cora, a Latin city at the north-western slopes of the Lepini Mountains) represent a remarkable example of Roman public architecture of the Late Republican period. They are situated at the bottom of a secular and imposing terracing system, distributed on at least three levels. This paper aims at identifying the modular schemes, geometric shapes and proportions governing the layout plan of this monumental infrastructure, based on recent topographic surveys and new metrological considerations. Finally, it will investigate the relationship between the layout of the archaeological complex (apparently quite simple) and its function (still largely unknown), in order to attempt to identify the several formal and functional components that played a decisive role in the development of the original project.
Several unusual burials dating to the Late Bronze Age in the Levant have been attributed to foreign elements. These include larnax burials at Gezer and the Persian Garden in Acco and the numerous double-pithos burials at Tell es-Sa'idiyeh in the Jordan Valley. In the case of the two larnakes, the author uses data from the burials to assess the place of these foreigners in their adopted societies. For Sa'idiyeh, the author assesses the conclusions of the excavator concerning both the identity of the foreign group represented by the double-pithos burials, and this group's function in the local community and offers an alternative interpretation-that the burials are those of Hittite refugees who settled at the site after the fall of the Hittite Empire.
Forecasting statistical models are becoming increasingly important in archaeological research. One of the reasons of this popularity is that archaeological sites tend to present themselves in particular environments so that forecasting models can help in identifying areas where the probability is higher based on previously collected statistical information. In the present paper we consider a class of statistical models designed to produce maps of the probability for archaeological site location (ASL) which incorporate both deductive and inductive considerations. In the discussion we criticise the use of the logistic regression for the production of ASL probability maps, a popular approach known in archaeological literature as the “integrated strategy”. The application of the method is statistically incorrect since in archaeological studies the hypothesis of independence between sites, which is at the basis of the logistic regression model, is violated. To overcome such limitations we propose two alternative models. The first one is an autopredictive model in which the probability of ASL is modelled as a function of the observations coming from field surveys in neighbouring zones. This approach accounts for the problem of non-independency of observations, but neglects a priori auxiliary information on the archaeological area. The second approach is a more comprehensive one which overcomes the problems of logistic regressions while preserving the role of a priori information.
The archaeological site of Ancient Noto is all that remains of one of the most interesting and important cities in the Est part of Sicily. Architecture and political life made Noto a point of reference for the island, expecially in XVI and XVII century, before it was destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1963. A general project of safeguard, together with archaeological excavations, could hand a great amount of information, archaeological finds, pieces of architecture, that are useful to understand the site, known as a "Sicilian Pompei". Our intervention has the aim to describe the importance of EFIAN (Experimental Fruition Ingenious Ancient Noto). The project is carried out as a collaboration between Palermo University, Catania University, SIQUILLIYA s.r.l. and Service & Advice s.r.l.. The project answers to the need of improving the valorisation of the site, according to the principles of Italian Code for Cultural Heritage and Landscape. EFIAN's purpose is that of improving public's sensibilisation, to open lines of research and restauration of monuments. The working method is based on the strong relationship established between History, Architectonic Relief, Restauration, and Study of ancient technics of construction linked to the territory. The research is supported by new generation technologies. Datas are used to build digital reconstructions of ruins in the shape of virtual anastylosis and digital reconstruction of whole buildings. Four different sites have been studied during the project development.
The paper illustrates the creation and integration of the environment as a multilevel landscape in AMPBV Simulator, a spatial Agent-Based Model (ABM) developed in NetLogo programming language. The model was conceived with the aim of investigating, through a simulative approach, the events and the circumstances (both anthropic and environmental) that presumably led, between the end of the Late Bronze Age, in the 12th cent. BC, and the beginning of the Final Bronze Age, the protohistoric communities of the Southern Verona plain (known as the Northern Terramare polity) from a climatic phase of maximum development and articulation to an anti-climatic phase of sudden collapse. The study context is an interesting application for an investigation through ABM, both because of the complexity of the case scenario, in which several interrelated actors and factors must have played an important role, and because of the availability of a number of geographical and archaeological data providing both a term of comparison and an excellent information base. With the development of an artificial environment and by modeling processes potentially critical for the fate of the Terramare system, the aim is, on the one hand, to give such a complex study case a new tool for historical analysis and, on the other hand, to experiment Agent-Based Modeling and assess its potential as a methodology for archaeological investigation in the Po Plain.
Sixty-six new archaeological sites have been discovered thanks to the combined use of different remote sensing techniques and open access geospatial datasets (mainly aerial photography, satellite imagery, and airborne LiDAR). These sites enhance the footprint of the Roman military presence in the northern fringe of the River Duero basin (León, Palencia, Burgos and Cantabria provinces, Spain). This paper provides a detailed morphological description of 66 Roman military camps in northwestern Iberia that date to the late Republic or early Imperial eras. We discuss the different spatial datasets and GIS tools used for different geographic contexts of varied terrain and vegetation. Finally, it stresses out the relevance of these novel data to delve into the rationale behind the Roman army movements between the northern Duero valley and the southern foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains. We conclude that methodological approaches stimulated by open-access geospatial datasets and enriched by geoscientific techniques are fundamental to understand the expansion of the Roman state in northwestern Iberia during the 1st c. BC properly. This renewed context set up a challenging scenario to overcome traditional archaeological perspectives still influenced by the cultural-historical paradigm and the pre-eminence of classical written sources.
The Faro Convention’s adoption by the Italian Parliament changed the future of Italian public museums; the Convention regards the active participation of the community as a new resource, intrinsically linked to the conservation and enhancement of heritage. This contribution hopes to give some guidelines for the future ‘techno- creative spaces’ at the Italian cultural sites, presenting some cases studies from the last three years (2018–2021).
Archaeology continues to generate large amounts of data, in a growing range of formats and media. Old datasets have been or are being digitised, and there is increasing emphasis on the re-use of old datasets, and on preparing new datasets with re-use in mind. That being so, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the prevention and detection of errors in archaeological data, and in acquiring or developing robust methods of analysis. The sorts of errors that can be encountered in different types of data are approached and discussed through a series of case studies, dealing with counting errors, measurement errors, and classificatory errors. They are linked to another obstacle to the re-use of data: the lack of standardised terminology between different originators. Strategies for mitigating these problems (which cannot be totally overcome) are discussed.
Heritage documentation has benefitted greatly from significant developments in sensor technology during the past two decades. Miniaturisation of sensors is also an important aspect in the development of low cost sensors, always interesting in heritage projects where budgetary constraints are often present. Among these sensors, the solid-state lidar has begun to attract attention, partly due to its integration in Apple Inc.’s latest version of the iPhone and iPad series. We hypothesise that this type of sensor will see a lot of use in the near future; however, the question remains whether they are sufficient for heritage documentation purposes. In this paper, results from the 2020 iPad Pro SSL point cloud will be assessed and compared to more traditional techniques for 3D scanning (photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning). While understandably the geometric quality of benchmark-level techniques such as these remain undeniably better, at least for the moment, the paper concludes that SSL sensors may nevertheless be sufficient for some lower-precision applications.
A first step in identifying the content of a document is determining which topics that document addresses. We describe a generative model for documents, introduced by Blei, Ng, and Jordan [Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y. & Jordan, M. I. (2003) J. Machine Learn. Res. 3, 993-1022], in which each document is generated by choosing a distribution over topics and then choosing each word in the document from a topic selected according to this distribution. We then present a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for inference in this model. We use this algorithm to analyze abstracts from PNAS by using Bayesian model selection to establish the number of topics. We show that the extracted topics capture meaningful structure in the data, consistent with the class designations provided by the authors of the articles, and outline further applications of this analysis, including identifying “hot topics” by examining temporal dynamics and tagging abstracts to illustrate semantic content.
3D data captured from archaeological excavations are frequently left to speak for themselves. 3D models of objects are uploaded to online viewing platforms, the tops or bottoms of surfaces are visualised in 2.5D, or both are reduced to 2D representations. Representations of excavation units, in particular, often remain incompletely processed as raw surface outputs, unable to be considered individual entities that represent the individual, volumetric units of excavation. Visualisations of such surfaces, whether as point clouds or meshes, are commonly viewed as an end result in and of themselves, when they could be considered the beginning of a fully volumetric way of recording and understanding the 3D archaeological record. In describing the creation of an archaeologically focused recording routine and a 3D-focused data processing workflow, this article provides the means to fill the void between excavation-unit surfaces, thereby producing an individual volumetric entity that corresponds to each excavation unit. Drawing on datasets from the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project (KAP) in western Turkey, the article shows the potential for programmatic creation of volumetric contextual units from 2D point cloud datasets, opening a world of possibilities and challenges for the development of a truly 3D archaeological practice.
The paper discusses the most recent results achieved by the University of Bologna in the northern Marche region, across the valleys of the Rivers Cesano, Nevola and Misa, within a young project of landscape archaeology mainly focused on the systematic employment of non-invasive techniques of investigation and mapping for evaluating buried archaeological assets. Started in 2009, the Mapping the Adriatic Landscape Project has led to the discovery of several sites, enriching the current state of knowledge concerning Iron Age's settlements and, in particular, the presence of Piceni in this sector of the region, which has so far been characterized by significant information gaps. The new activities fit into the background of the long tradition of study in Bologna of the northern Marche, aimed at achieving a better understanding of the dynamics of settlement and of the process of urbanization. In this light the present study is of a particular relevance, allowing us to enhance the framework of occupation during the Iron Age, which in the area considered, still poorly archaeologically documented, remains a complex and fascinating period, characterized by a “cultural melting pot”, with the coexistence and blending of Piceni, Celts and Roman people, but still poorly archaeologically documented.
Catalogo della mostra: Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, 14 marzo-21 giugno 2015. Dal 14 marzo 2015 Palazzo Strozzi a Firenze è sede di una mostra - organizzata in collaborazione con il J. Paul Getty Museum di Los Angeles e la National Gallery of Art di Washington - che vede riuniti alcuni tra i maggiori capolavori del mondo antico, provenienti dai più importanti musei archeologici italiani e internazionali. Circa cinquanta sculture in bronzo raccontano gli straordinari sviluppi artistici dell'età ellenistica in tutto il bacino del Mediterraneo. Se da una parte le opere ellenistiche segnano la diffusione, con Alessandro Magno, del genere dei "ritratti del potere", dall'altra rivoluzionano lo stile dell'arte classica introducendo pathos ed espressività nelle figure rappresentate. I saggi ci accompagnano in un percorso ideale attraverso statue monumentali di divinità, atleti ed eroi e ritratti di personaggi storici, in un percorso che conduce il visitatore alla scoperta delle affascinanti storie dei ritrovamenti di questi capolavori, investigandone anche il processo di produzione, di fusione e le tecniche di finitura.
After the great pandemic of 1348, the plague became endemic in Europe, affecting life at every level for more than three hundred years. In attempting to fight the dread enemy, the North Italian states had developed, by the early sixteenth century, a highly sophisticated system of public health. Special permanent magistracies combining legislative and executive powers were established to administer all public health matters. In this volume, Carlo M. Cipolla throws new light on the subject, utilizing newly uncovered and significant archival material. In the first essay, the author analyzes the complex set of interrelationships that existed between theory and practice in Renaissance epidemiology. The significance of this essay goes beyond the history of public health and extends to the larger history of science. In the second essay, Cipolla studies a case in which health matters became the object of intense diplomatic activity. In that instance, fully sovereign states envisaged interstate controls and relinquished discretionary powers for the sake of the “common health.” Although the concerted effort was short-lived, it does represent an attempt at international health cooperation that was unmatched for another two centuries, until the first International Sanitary Conference, held in Paris in 1851. In the third essay, unusually detailed statistical documentation allows the author to analyze in detail the demographic, economic, and social aspects of the fight against the plague in a Tuscan city—Pistoia—during the epidemic of 1630–31. A richly documented appendix, forming an essay in itself, illustrates present knowledge of the clinical, pathological, and epidemiological features of the plague in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe.
