Paulo Bernardes, Portugal | ISBN: | Submitted: May 3, 1999

Multimedia and Archaeology. A multi-disciplinary approach for the presentation of Bracara Augusta’s archaeological heritage

The purpose of this paper is to present an archaeological information system and multimedia applications used to record, manage and diffuse the data provided by the excavations done, after 1976, in Braga, Portugal, related with the "Urban Rescue Project of Bracara Augusta".

We first present the Geographical Information System (GIS) that has been created to manage and process archaeological information (SIABRA), carried out by the team of Unit of Archaeology of Minho University, responsible for the Project.

A natural result and advantage of the System is to simplify the spatial analysis and articulation of data related to the main buildings already found, as well as the interpretation of the urbanism.

One step further on these advantages was the three dimensional reconstruction of models, which allow to analyse and visualise complex and diachronic information of the roman town, in order to facilitate the global understanding of buildings, its reconstruction phases and the general relationships between them.

The development of virtual environments reproducing archaeological sites, such as a roman town (Bracara Augusta) could be considered an important and powerful tool for enhancing the research of specialists (archaeologists, architects, urbanists) and to improve heritage conscienseness.

[more information]
http://www.uaum.uminho.pt/vsmm99/vsmm99.htm

[other authors]
Carlos Dantas and Manuela Martins

[keywords]
Virtual Environments, Multimedia, GIS, Archaeology, Archaeological Heritage