New Technologies for the 'Great Baths' of Aquileia: Results and Prospects

The Great Baths were a large and sumptuous public building of late Roman Aquileia, with refined mosaics and inlay-work floors. Today they are completely concealed below cultivated fields, because vaults, walls and their architectural decorations were despoiled already in the Middle Age. Therefore, the university of Udine Archaeological Mission needs to employ both traditional and new technologies to reconstruct their original luxury, their complete layout and the subsequent landscape transformations suffered by the area: a meticulous stratigraphical excavation; the analysis of aerial photographs and historical maps; photogrammetric, laser-scanner and geophysical surveys. Other research projects are involved in the 3D-modelling of the buildings and photorealistic reconstructions of mosaic floors, to prepare multimedia aids for the foreseen opening to the public. All of these works are in progress: the main results and future prospects are presented here.