Francesco GABELLONE / Giuseppe SCARDOZZI
(CNR-IBAM. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Lecce, Italy)

Outline:

– Reconstruction of the urban layout and its transformation during centuries, with the integration of archaeological excavation and systematic surveys, high resolution satellite and aerial remote sensing, topographical surveys with differential GPS, Total Station, and Laser Scanner, and geophysical prospecting

-Development of a research line aimed at the virtual restoration and three-dimensional restitution of ancient monuments in the roman city of Hierapolis of Phrygia, in Turkey;

– Creating tools of communication that are easy to understand and can be used to develop narratives (storytelling) that describe, using the methods of Virtual Reality, the results of archaeological explorations undertaken in recent years in Hierapolis of Phrygia.

Abstract:

The paper concerns the methodologies and technologies applied to the reconstructive studies of the urban layout and landscape of Hierapolis of Phrygia, an Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine city in the Çürüksu (ancient Lykos) valley, in south-western Turkey.

The history of the city, founded in the 3rd century BC, was marked by destructive earthquakes, which have also determined the main phases of its urban development during the Roman and Early Byzantine period, until the decline and the abandonment in the Middle Byzantine and Seljuk period. Moreover, the western sector of the urban area is covered with white calcareous formations (thick of even 3-4 m), produced by the springs whose waters emerge from the central area of the city as a result of the earthquakes of the medieval period.

In the last seven years, a research project of CNR-IBAM, in the Italian Archaeological Mission, was finalized to the reconstruction of the urban layout and its transformation during centuries, with the integration of archaeological excavation and systematic surveys, high resolution satellite and aerial remote sensing, topographical surveys with differential GPS, Total Station, and Laser Scanner, and geophysical prospecting (GPR, Magnetometry, Electrical Tomography) of the areas covered by thick colluvial and alluvial deposits and by extensive calcareous formations that have incorporated the ancient remains. The result was a numerical archaeological map in a GIS dedicated to Hierapolis, in which all the monuments and remains of the ancient cities are integrated on the urban plan and on a DTM and DEMs with different geometric resolution, elaborated through remote sensing data (SRTM and Ikonos stereo pair) and GPS surveys. This map and DEMs constitute the base for the 3D reconst

ruction of some monuments and archaeological areas (as the Frontinus Street, the North Agorà, the Nymphaeum of Tritons, the Theatre, the Martyrion of St. Philip), in a still in progress project finalized to the virtual reconstruction of Hierapolis and the virtual restoration of some monuments, the new life of a lost city, through the integration of 3D photo-modelling and laser scanning techniques and archaeological and topographical data.

Keywords:

Archaeology, Virtual Reality, Hierapolis, 3D Reconstructive studies, Laser Scanner