THE VIRTUAL HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CERCHIA DEI NAVIGLI OF MILAN: FROM HISTORICAL ARCHIVES, 3D SURVEY AND HBIM TO THE VIRTUAL VISUAL STORYTELLING

In the last decades, thanks to the development of eXtended Reality (XR) development platforms, research studies have envisaged new possibilities for disseminating tangible and intangible values of the past through historical virtual reconstructions. More recently, experimentation in the field of virtual archaeology has led to the development of interactive experiences based on advanced virtual and augmented reality (VR-AR) technologies. In this context, the authors intend to support the transmissibility of the historical and cultural background through validated and sustainable workflow-oriented to create virtual historical reconstruction using different sources such as 3D survey (laser scanning and digital photogrammetry), Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) models and historical reports. The XR project’s development included reconstructing the main historical sections and water basins of the Cerchia dei Navigli in Milan: the Conca dell’Incoronata, the Conca di Viarenna and Via Senato. The main objective is to achieve realistic and suggestive Virtual Visual Storytelling (VVS), recreating the atmospheres and scenes of everyday life when the waterways were still present. The result is engaging content on an emotional level, which leaves the visitor with dynamic memory and the feeling of reliving lost moments.

Animating Past Worlds

Creating ‘past worlds’ is more than just creative flair or technical wizardry, it is the distillation of grounded heritage interpretation and reflection as applied to the creative (re)visualization of ancient peoples and landscapes. Be it the digital dinosaurs of Jurassic Park or the fake placement of lifelike digital actors seamlessly inserted within media, virtual heritage is increasingly caught between the praxis of the visual enchantment of feature film and television visual effects (VFX), the increasing visual and phenomenological immersive worlds of 3D, virtual games and the hyper-reality of deep fake VFX. This chapter will provide the basics of animation, while at the same time introducing the reader to the concepts of virtual archaeology and digital cultural heritage from a digital visualization perspective.

From Field Archaeology to Virtual Reconstruction: A Five Steps Method Using the Extended Matrix

This article is framed into the theoretical and methodological background of virtual archaeology. The advantages of virtual archaeology and its weak points have long been discussed in academia, formulating theoretical foundations and principles to be followed in order to guarantee scientific results, where data are traceable, transparent and verifiable. Gathering the inheritance of the last 30 years of debates and research, this work proposes implementing these principles through the formulation of a methodological approach, to virtual reconstruction of archaeological contexts, consisting of an application protocol articulated in five steps. In particular, the proposed methodology is grounded in the Extended Matrix (EM), a formal language and tools entirely developed and tested by the Virtual Heritage lab of the CNR ISPC. The EM takes its cue from the Matrix of Harris and adapts its system to the specific needs arising in the fields of virtual reconstruction and scientific visualisation. This protocol, which ranges from fieldwork to the publication of scientific data, has been tested and systematised in over ten years of activity on various complex and significant archaeological contexts. In the article, each methodological step is supported by case studies described in detail and accompanied by a graphic apparatus that clearly illustrates the results obtained. These case studies led to the definition of version 1.2 of the EM as described in the methods section.

Connecting Native Students to STEM Research Using Virtual Archaeology

ABSTRACT Universities struggle to provide meaningful education and mentorship to Native American students, especially in STEM fields such as archaeology and geography. The Native American Summer Mentorship Program (NASMP) at Utah State University is designed to address Native student retention and representation, and it fosters collaboration between mentors and mentees. In spring 2020, as university instruction went online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NASMP mentors were faced with adapting hands-on activities and face-to-face interaction to an online format. Using our Water Heritage Anthropological Project as a case study, we show how virtual archaeological, archival, spatial, and anthropological labs can be adapted for online delivery. This approach may be especially useful for reaching students in rural settings but also for engaging students in virtual or remote research in the field sciences.

TOWARDS A VIRTUAL ART/ARCHAEOLOGY

The term Virtual Archaeology was coined 30 years ago when personal computing and the first wave of digital devices and associated technologies became generally available to field archaeologists (Reilly 1991; 1992). The circumstances that led to the origin of Virtual Archaeology have been recounted elsewhere. Put briefly, Virtual Archaeology was intended for reflexive archaeological practitioners “to be a generative concept and a provocation allowing for creative and playful improvisation around the potential adoption or adaptation of any new digital technology in fieldwork; in other words to explore how new digital tools could enable, and shape, new methodological insights and interpretation, that is new practices” (Beale, Reilly 2017). Digital creativity in archaeology and cultural heritage continues to flourish, and we can still stand by these aspirations. However, in 2021, the definition and extent of this implied “archaeological” community of practice and its assumed authority seems too parochial. Moreover, the archaeological landscape is not under the sole purview of archaeologists or cultural heritage managers. Consequently, experimentation with novel modes and methods of engagement, the creation of new forms of analysis, and different ways of knowing this landscape, are also not their sole prerogative. This applies equally to Virtual Archaeology and digital creativity in the realm of cultural heritage more generally. We assert that other affirmative digitally creative conceptions of, and engagements with, artefacts, virtual archaeological landscapes and cultural heritage assemblages – in their broadest sense – are possible if we are willing to adopt other perspectives and diffract them through contrasting disciplinary points of view and approaches. In this paper we are specifically concerned with interlacing artistic and virtual archaeology practices within the realm of imaging, part of something we call Virtual Art/Archaeology.

VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY: 10 YEARS IN VIRTUAL SPACE

According to the system development life cycle framework (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288), any technical project usually passes six stages: requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation. The international “Virtual archaeology” project is no exception. It was born thanks to the ideas of the ISAP London meeting in 2011 and contacts with the newly established Ludwig Bolzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology. The concept of virtual archaeology was first proposed by Paul Reilly in 1990 who introduced the use of 3D computer models based on virtual reality for the visualisation of archaeological data (Reilly 1990). Since then, virtual archaeology has developed into a broad field of research and applications using the internationally recognised principles for the use of computer-based visualisation (London Charter Initiative 2009), while still missing its fundamental definition. That was the problem to discuss by the specialists interested in the topic. The sequence of all the activities based on the previous results has got the title International “Virtual archaeology” project with periodical conferences taking place.

RETHINKING THE ANALOGUE – FROM VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY TO A DIGITAL EXHIBITION

In 1993, workers discovered a mummified human head during exploitation in the salt mine of Chehrābād, Province of Zanjān, Iran (Vatandoust 1998). This find marks the beginning of more than 20 years of international and interdisciplinary research. The mummified head dates to Sassanian times and is known to the world today as “Salt Man 1”. The salt extraction in Chehrābād continued until 2009 and led to the discovery of further mummified human remains, which were, in accordance to the first find, named “Salt Men of Zanjān”. These salt mummies as well as the site are a unique cultural heritage for humankind. In 2004, archaeologists made an exceptional discovery during a rescue excavation. This find, the mummy of a 15 to 16-year-old youth, is – to date – the best-preserved salt mummy known worldwide (Aali 2005). In 2007 an international research project started, co-headed by the German Mining Museum Bochum and the Zanjān Saltman and Archaeological Museum. All these efforts led to the halt of the commercial exploitation of the salt mine in 2009. Subsequently, the salt mine was declared a cultural heritage site (Aali et al. 2012). In multiple excavation campaigns not only the salt mine itself, but also its surrounding area were studied thoroughly. The results of these joint efforts were published in two monographs (Aali, Stöllner 2015; Stöllner, Aali, Bagherpour Kashani 2020) and various further articles (e.g. Aali et al. 2012;Öhrström et al. 2016; Pollard et al. 2008; Ramaroli et al. 2010; Vahdati Nasab et al. 2019)

Serious Gaming for Virtual Archaeoastronomy

Many cultures worldwide have left traces of sacred architecture and monuments which often show correlation to astronomical events like solstitial sunrises. Virtual archaeology can be used to explore such orientation patterns using digital reconstructions and positions of celestial objects computed from modern astronomical models. Most 3D editing systems used to build virtual reconstructions of such monuments however fail to provide astronomically accurate solar illumination models which can recreate the slightly different solar positions of antiquity or even prehistory, and even worse, any usable representation of the night sky. In recent years, two systems created independently by the authors of this study have been utilized for investigations into the orientation of architecture with respect to celestial processes. Both had their advantages and shortcomings compared to each other. One extended a dedicated open-source desktop astronomy program with a 3D rendering engine where such monuments can be investigated in the first-person perspective by interactive walkthrough. The other system uses a game engine and external online resources which provides only solar or planetary positions, but no star data. This study presents ways of connecting both systems in an attempt to take advantage of the best of both approaches.

VIAS – the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science

The Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS) was founded within the University of Vienna in 1992 as a forward-looking transdisciplinary institution. VIAS aims to develop and integrate methods from the natural sciences in a dynamic relationship with the culture-oriented investigative frameworks of archaeology, and to provide support, knowledge and partnership in multidisciplinary research programmes and projects. VIAS functions as a core facility and is conducting research in the fields of archaeobotany, archaeozoology, bioarchaeology, archaeometry and archaeometallurgy, analysis of precious metals, ceramology, geophysical archaeological prospection on land and underwater, geoarchaeology, digital archaeological documentation methods, and experimental archaeology. VIAS reaches out beyond the university by developing and collaborating in projects together with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and regional museums and cultural heritage administrations as well as many international partners. VIAS has substantially contributed to the development of efficient high-resolution prospection methods as a founding partner in the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology.