This summer I have the incredible opportunity to work with the Vulci 3000 Bass Connections team. The project focuses on combining archaeology and innovative technology to excavate and understand an ancient Etruscan and Roman site. Over the next several weeks I will be writing a series of articles highlighting the different parts of the excavation. This first installment recounts the history of the project and what we plan to accomplish in Vulci.
Covered in tall grasses and grazing cows it’s hard to imagine that the Vulci Archaeology Park was ever something more than a beautiful countryside. However, in reality, it was home to one of the largest, most important cities of ancient Etruria. In fact, it was one of the biggest cities in the 1st millennium BCE on the entire Italian peninsula. Buried under the ground are the incredible remains of Iron Age, Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval settlements.
Duke’s involvement with the Vulci site began in 2015 when Maurizio Forte, the William and Sue Gross Professor of Classical Studies Art, Art History, and Visual Studies visited the site. What was so unique about the site was that most of it was untouched.
One of the perils of archaeology is that any site can only be physically excavated once and it is inevitable for some parts to be damaged regardless of how careful the team is. Vulci presented a unique opportunity. Because much of the site was still undisturbed, Forte could utilize innovative technology to create digital landscapes that could be viewed in succession as the site was excavated. This would allow him and his team to revisit the site at each stage of excavation. In 2015 he applied for his first permit to begin researching the Vulci site.
In 2016 Forte created a Bass Connections project titled Digital Cities and Polysensing Environments. That summer they ventured to Italy to begin surveying the Vulci site. Because Vulci is a large site it would take too much time and money to excavate the city. Instead, Forte and his team decided to find the most important spots to excavate. They did this by combining remote sensing data and procedural modeling to analyze the various layers underground. They collected data using magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar. They also used drones to capture aerial photography of the site.
These technologies allowed the team to locate the urban areas of the site through the discovery of large buildings and streets revealed by the aerial photographs, radiometrically-calibrated orthomaps, and 3D point cloud/mesh models.
The project continued into 2017 and 2018 with a team returning to the site each summer to excavate. Within the trench were archaeologists ranging from undergrads to postdocs digging, scraping and brushing for months to discover what lay beneath the surface. As they began to uncover rooms, pottery, coins, and even a cistern, groups outside the trench continued to advanced technology to collect data and improve the understanding of the site.
One unit focused on drone sensing to digitally create multispectral imagery as well as high-resolution elevation models. This allowed them to use soil and crop marks to better interpretation and classify the archaeological features.
By combining traditional archaeology and innovative technology the team has been able to more efficiently discover important, ancient artifacts and analyze them in order to understand the ancient Etruscan and Roman civilizations that once called Vulci their home.
This year, archaeologists return to the site to continue excavation. As another layer of Vulci is uncovered, students and faculty will use technology like drones, photogrammetry, geophysical prosecutions and GIS to document and interpret the site. We will also be using a 360 camera to capture VR compatible content for the OculusGo in order to allow anybody to visit Vulci virtually.
By Anna Gotskind
