<p>With the diffusion of Virtual Archaeology, many projects in the field of Cultural Heritage attempt to virtually reconstruct historical buildings of different types. Unfortunately, some of these 3D reconstructions still have as principal aim to impress the external users, while the correct interpretation of the buildings modeled is much more important in the domain of archaeological research. Still more critical is the situation when we have to encounter a reconstruction of a monument which is not visible anymore, or which consists only of few architectural remains. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative methodology to verify hypothetical scenarios of 3D architectural reconstructions, specifically for ancient theatres. In very recent time 3D visibility analysis applied to archaeological context using ArcGIS has been developed, in particular about social-urban studies. In this paper, visibility analysis in 3D contexts is used as an additional instrument to correctly reconstruct architectural elements of the large Roman theatre of Gortyn, in Crete. The results indicate that the level of visibility of the stage, and consequently of the presumed actors, from some of the more representative sectors of the cavea, is of crucial importance for leading to a right reconstruction model of the theatre.</p>
The location of the so-called “small” Roman theatre of Gortyna (Crete), precisely at the back of the temple dedicated to Apollo Pythios, suggests a clear correlation of this monument with religious rituals. We may suppose that the theatre was used in particular during the Ludi Apollinares (Pythia), namely games and a festival dedicated to the God Apollo (held for the first time in Rome in 212 BC) or during the iso-Olympic agones as witnessed by the epigraphic sources of the imperial age. However, we have to consider also the possibility that the “small” theatre of Gortyna could have housed civic ceremonies or other activities related to the life of the Koinon ton Kreton, the federal assembly of all the Cretan cities which had its seat during the imperial times right in the space of the sanctuary. This paper aims to verify the typology of performances and activities that could take place in the theatre of the Pythion (namely if it was more suitable for music or speech) through virtual acoustics analysis. The study of the acoustics’ quality has provided significant support to formulate hypotheses about the primary function of the theatre of the Pythion at Gortyna.
During the IGEAN (Innovative Geophysical Approaches for the Study of Early Agricultural Villages of Neolithic) project, more than 20 Neolithic-Early Bronze Age (EBA) settlements in the area of Thessaly, Central Greece, were investigated through various geophysical approaches. The prehistoric settlements of Almyros2, Almyriotiki, Perdika1 and Rizomilos2 have been selected to be studied in-depth about their intra-site spatial organization. Here, for sake of conciseness, only the results about Almyros2 and Perdika1 will be presented, assuming these settlements belong both to the Middle Neolithic period. This study aims to propose a combined methodological approach in order to examine if such settlements were conceived following a determined spatial organization. Four different technologies have been implemented, including geophysical prospection, space syntax, 3D modelling and 3D visibility analysis. The promising results obtained from the combination of such technologies, hopefully, will encourage specialists to adopt, compare and develop integrated methodologies more often, especially when excavations are limited.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.