Survey, Documentation and Analysis of the Archeological Architecture. The House of the Knights of Rhodes in the Forum of Augustus

The study and interpretation of the so-called Archeological Architecture is generally quite a difficult task: such elements or complexes nowadays show in fact very stratified and heavily restored configurations resulting from centuries of interventions. Survey represents one of the major instruments for deeply investigating the intimate nature of such artifacts thanks to its ability to enlighten both the studied object and its context, their mutual relationships and the sequence of transformations. Survey has to be intended though as an “open” process aiming at improving the general Level of Knowledge of the studied object; a process in which three main phases can be recognized: Data Acquisition, Data Selection and Interpretation, Communication. Phase one includes all information-gathering activities coming mainly from measurements and, under certain conditions, it leads to datasets “tending” to be objective. Conversely, during the Selection and Interpretation phase this database is “intelligently” reviewed for a critical selection and interpretation leading thus to “subjective” results. Finally, during the Communication phase results are codified in order to make them widely available for the scientific community. The whole process always starts from getting acquainted with the artifact by direct inspection and by an historical investigation of archive sources (documents, drawings, pictures, etc.) able in outlining the timing and evolution of changes. All this information would in fact crucially guide the following operations of data capturing (surveying). From this standpoint the House of the Knights of Rhodes in the Forum of Augustus is quite emblematic: no recent and systematic documentation is in fact available; present building is the result of many historical phases that have over time added or subtracted elements to the original roman building; the complex is actually a tangle of architectural and archaeological elements and for this reason it can be assumed as a “showcase”; finally the researches on the House, as relevant part of the Forum of Augustus, have received a new significant impulse by some recent excavations campaigns. The research on the House of the Knights of Rhodes we are presenting has been then focusing on all these issues, aiming at demonstrating both the inner “coherence” of the Survey process and the potentials of the Integrated Survey procedures where many surveying techniques (3D scan, photomodeling, ortophotography, topography, GPS, direct survey) are used at the same time in order to optimize time, resources, models and results. Models (2D, 3D) have been positively used to investigate this very fragmented portion of the Roman Forum (the building itself, the context of which it is part, the overall alignment of ancient structures, the consistency of buildings as well as the functions they used to host) not neglecting their role as means for communication of results and dissemination.