Virtual Archaeology and Historical Revisionism. The neglected heritage of Greek Siracusa

Francesco GABELLONE¹ / Davide TANASI²
(¹CNR IBAM, Lecce, / ²Arcadia University, Siracusa, Italy)

Keywords: Siracusa, 3D, Reborn, Virtual

Abstract:
The Sicilian case of Siracusa is emblematic. Founded by the Corinthians in 733 BC, birthplace of poets and thinkers as Epicharmus and Archimedes, visited by many prominent figures of Greek culture as Pindar, Aeschylus and Plato, Siracusa over centuries became one of the most beautiful, influential and wealthy among the Greek cities of the Mediterranean basin, as the majestic temples testified. Nonetheless, regardless the historical background and the imposing visible remains of that past emerging everywhere in the actual urban area, Siracusa, since 2005 World Heritage site, has never played the role of quintessential archetype of Greek city both in the scientific literature and the mainstream.
Against this scenario a proper action of historical revisionism over all the media should be undertake for recovering the neglected heritage of ancient Siracusa in order to restitute to this once splendid archetype of Greek culture the deserved role in the international Mediterranean network of classical archaeology key-site.
A starting point is represented by a virtual archaeology project, undertook by a team of scholars of the IBAM-CNR and The Arcadia University – TCGS, aimed to the overall digital reconstruction of Ortigia, the core district of the Greek Siracusa, produced a 3D documentary ‘Siracusa 3D reborn’, that represents a pivotal advance in the knowledge of the Greek background of the city.
In this perspective, the choice of providing ‘passive’ cognitive tools embedded with communicational and emotional components did not affected the scientific accuracy with which the reconstructive process has been carried out. Main monuments of Ortigia are described and analyzed in the context of a full 3D stereoscopic representation employing techniques of modern cinema industry for elucidating and explaining its historical and archaeological characteristics. The reconstructive workflow followed a meticulous methodological plan based on the published data and aimed to define a previously unavailable topographic profile of the city, portrayed in two main chronological phases, Archaic and Late Classical.