Reconstructing a Submerged Villa Maritima: The Case of the Villa dei Pisoni in Baiae

Abstract

Among the activities planned for the MUSAS Project, the digital reconstruction of the underwater sites constitutes a particular challenge, requiring strong cooperation between archaeologists and technicians. The case of the Villa dei Pisoni in Baiae, one of the richest in the Phlaegrean territory, is particularly interesting: the architectural remains, already documented in the 1980s and now inserted in one of the diving spots of the Underwater Park of Baiae, are disseminated on a huge surface, including quays, thermal complexes, a fishpond, and a large, luxurious viridarium. The effort required for the digital reconstruction of the ancient villa improved the previous knowledge and the lack of documentation even in a well-known site. In this paper, we will retrace the long path from the 3D reconstruction of the archaeological remains to the virtual architectural model of the villa, the numerous challenges, doubts, and uncertainties in the creation of the original spaces, and the support offered by the ancient sources, both literary and iconographic, in solving archaeological problems.

A Semi-Automatic-Based Approach to the Extraction of Underwater Archaeological Features from Ultra-High-Resolution Bathymetric Data: The Case of the Submerged Baia Archaeological Park

“…It was a favourite holiday resort of the Roman aristocracy and the imperial family until the entire 3rd century A.D. Baia, submerged over the centuries by the phenomenon of bradyseism, preserves the remains of domus and villas, thermal baths, mosaics, and other extraordinary artifacts and buildings. Although numerous underwater archaeological investigations have been conducted over the last four decades, leading to the reconstruction of an extensive architectural layout, there are still previously unknown archaeological submerged features to be studied, as indicated by the preliminary interpretation of a recent UHR bathymetric survey [59][60][61][62]. To this end, borrowing an approach from LiDAR remote sensing [49], particular attention will be paid to the observation and analysis of microtopographic variations that could reasonably reveal the presence of buried remains, expected to be in a spatial and functional relationship with the visible archaeological structures.…”