The last ten years of research at Tarquinia

Abstract

The Centro di Ricerca Coordinata ‘ProgettoTarquinia’ of the Universita degli Studi di Milano is a LERU (League of European Research Universities) exemplary interdisciplinary research project that involves groups from the Universita Statale di Milano (Archaeology, Information and Communication Technologies, Geoarchaeology, Palaeoanthropology), the Politecnico di Milano (Architecture and Topography) and bridges the gap between soft and hard sciences. This project stems from the ‘Progetto Tarquinia’ conceived by Maria Bonghi Jovino in 1982. During the last ten years, our integrated system of tools and services, supported by ICTs (ArchMatrix), through which multidisciplinary domain experts can examine all the typologies of data of a given culture, has made it possible to concentrate on the links between data-sources focusing on the recurrence of association rates within different aspects of material evidence and phenomena. The fields of application of our methodology in the domain of archaeology and epigraphy are multifaceted as regards the inside and outside connections of the Tarquinian heritage, whose necropolis with the famous painted tombs is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Research includes areas of the Civita plateau: the ‘monumental complex’, the Ara della Regina sanctuary, fortifications, and archaeological sites previously explored. In the past ten years, research in the necropolis (roughly 6,000 tombs, of which 400 are painted) and in the surrounding territory has also been implemented and has produced the complete corpus of the painted tombs of Tarquinia. Our holistic approach encompasses archaeological analysis of small (mobile finds), medium (archaeological contexts) and large scale (territory and landscape) architectural analysis and applications for integrated solutions for the cultural heritage, including the first bilingual Virtual Museum dedicated to an Etruscan city.