TECHNICAL ANALYSIS AND MAPPING OF ANCIENT MONUMENT

Academic Year 2023/2024 - Teacher: Enrico FELICI

Expected Learning Outcomes

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

1) knowledge and understanding skills such as to reinforce those achieved in the first cycle; ability to elaborate and / or apply original ideas, in a research context.

2) ability to apply knowledge and understanding and ability to solve problems to new or unfamiliar issues, inserted in broader (or interdisciplinary) contexts connected to one's field of study;

3) ability to integrate knowledge and to formulate judgments on the basis of information that is not necessarily complete;

4) ability to communicate one's knowledge clearly and unambiguously to specialist and non-specialist interlocutors.

5) ability to carry out research autonomously.

 

The course gives the knowledge and methodologies for the recognition of building materials and their acquisition or manufacture, with insights into the interpretation of construction processes and engineering systems of antiquity, the evolution and architectural characteristics of specific types of monuments, as well as for the documentation of the monuments themselves and of the archaeological excavation, even in a submerged environment.

 

The application of the general skills listed above is concretely implemented in the direct survey of the monuments. To this end, the candidates, under the guidance of the teacher, carry out a direct archaeological survey. The ability to document is preparatory and inseparable from the expertise in the technical analysis of the monument. During the course, the student is given advanced methodological knowledge on the comparative process between the monumental archaeological remains and the evidence of the sources, especially the treatise of Vitruvius.

 

This training gives the student the tools for autonomous observation of the monument. The knowledge of an accurate approach method avoids the conditioning of the literature produced, which the student, made independent, learns how to critically evaluate.

 

The comparative examination of specialist literature and archaeological evidence also substantiates a corpus of communication exempla; the enunciation by the teacher of the relative procedural and deontological criteria also lays the foundations for the ability to produce professional writings, especially for scientific purposes, and of the related specific necessary expository skills: appropriate language, clarity of contents, methods of communication in its different shapes.

 

The concept of the program includes both manual and specialist literature, mixed in a balanced balance that develops in the students both the necessary general skills and, on the other hand, confidence with the criteria of the archaeological writing of a monumental subject. Learning is stimulated by exercising the contextualization of the case studies in the methodological panorama of the discipline.

Course Structure

Classroom lectures with slide show and reading of sources. Practice of archaeological direct survey and technical analysis on a monument.

Required Prerequisites

No prerequisites required.

Attendance of Lessons

Attendance is not compulsory.

Detailed Course Content

Building materials; quarries. Construction process:  mould; clay, wood; stone; opus caementicium, in its various forms (incertum, reticulatum, testaceum, etc.). Examples of building and architectural types. Archeological prospecting, remote sensing, direct survey. Cartography. Elements of archaeological stratigraphy. Graphic rendering. Archaeological survey practice.

Textbook Information

- A. Carandini, Storie dalla terra: manuale dello scavo archeologico, Bari 1981, pp. 31-102.

- F. Coarelli, L'inizio dell'opus testaceum a Roma e nell'Italia romana, in P. Boucheron, H. Broise, Y. Thébert (Eds.), (acte du coll.) La brique antique et médiévale. Production et commercialisation d'un matériau, (Saint-Cloud 1995) Rome 2000, pp.  87-95.

- F. Coarelli, Opus mixtum, in (a cura di) F. M. Cifarelli, (atti del conv.) Tecniche costruttive del tardo ellenismo nel Lazio e in Campania, (Segni 2011) Roma 2013, pp. 43-54.

- E. Felici, in F. P. Arata, E. Felici, Porticus Aemilia, navalia o horrea ? Ancora sui frammenti 23 e 24 b-d della Forma Urbis, in Archeologia Classica 62, n.s. 1, 2011: pp. 137-148 (12).

- E. Felici, Il porto di Claudio e Vitruvio, in Atlante Tematico di Topografia Antica 23, 2013, pp. 111-137.

- E. Felici, Dalla latomia al cantiere. Il trasporto nautico della pietra, in (a cura di) G. Buscemi Felici, E. Felici, L. Lanteri,  Produzioni antiche sulla costa sud orientale della Sicilia. Saggi di topografia antica litoranea, Bari 2020 (ISBN 978-88-7228-927-3), pp. 147-174.

- E. Felici, Antium. Archeologia subacquea e Vitruvio nel porto di Nerone, Bari 2021, pp. 93-103, 130-189.

- C.F. Giuliani, L’edilizia nell’antichità, Roma 2006, pp. 311.

- C.F. Giuliani, L'opus caementicium nell'edilizia romana, in (a cura di) C.F. Giuliani, A. Samuelli Ferretti, (atti del sem.) Opus caementicium. Il materiale e la tecnica costruttiva, Roma (1997) 1998, pp. 49-61.

- C.F. Giuliani, Archeologia oggi. La fantasia al potere, in Quaderni di archeologia e di cultura classica 2, Tivoli 2012, pp. 5- 48.

- P. Gros, L’architettura romana. I monumenti pubblici, trad. it. Milano 2001, pp. 434-467.

- G. Gullini, L'architettura e l'urbanistica, in Princeps urbium. Cultura e vita sociale dell'Italia romana, Milano 19932, pp. 419-714.

- M. Medri, Manuale di rilievo archeologico, Roma-Bari 2003, pp. 26-79, 168-211.

- Vitruvio, De architectura, ed. a cura di P. Gros, Torino 1997 (passi scelti).

 

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library, except for some articles and transcriptions of ancient sources which, in compliance with current regulations, will be made available by the teacher on the STUDIUM digital platform.
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