The ancient Roman Dacia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa is going to be rehabilitated within an ample 3D project using state-of-the-art devices, and even a drone and a highly performing scanner. More precisely, the drone will collect topometry information and information about the monuments, even the underground ones.
The project, a first in Romania, is conducted by Romanian specialists of the National Museum of Transylvanian History (MNIT) of Cluj-Napoca assisted by a team of the National Research Centre of Rome. 33 hectares of the former Roman citadel and almost 80 hectares outside the city’s borders are targeted by the study. The rehabilitation works are expected to last for two years.
‘Our museum and the Institute for Cultural Heritage Applied Technology of Rome are currently conducting a first in Romania, a project for the stereoscopic reconstruction of the Roman city of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. For the reconstruction, non-invasive geo-physical measurements will be used. It entails unsearched monuments still under ground, with the scientists reading soil anomalies to detect the contour of archeological structures that allows a stereoscopic reconstruction of the city,’ MNIT Cluj-Napoca Director Carmen Ciongradi told Agerpres.
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa was built after the Roman conquest of Dacia by emperor Trajan, in 106 A.D. Built on the ground of a camp of the Fifth Macedonian Legion, the city city was settled by veterans of the Dacian wars. With an area of 30 hectares, a population between 20,000 and 25,000, and strong fortifications, Ulpia Traiana was the political, administrative and religious centre of Roman Dacia in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
The city was destroyed by the Goths. Today Ulpia Traiana remains in ruins, with a partly preserved forum, an amphitheatre, and remnants of several temples. Romanian specialists, particularly Transylvanian archaeologists, have been studying the site for decades, without having exhausted its perimeter.