This is the first of the many posts that are yet to come regarding the modeling and 3D reconstruction of the Roman city of Acci (Guadix, Spain). For this project I am mainly focused on archaeological remains, historical accounts and a scientific interpretation of what Roman urbanism was at that time at this specific location.
Since I attempt to recreate a whole city in 3D I am pretty much forced to have a very clean and efficient workflow to get the desired results.
Study of the orography and terrain. 3D terrain in QGIS
Study of all roman remains found in previous archaeological excavations (bibliography). Map the results in either QGIS or Adobe Illustrator
1. Study of the orography and terrain. 3D terrain in QGIS
In order to give an exact idea of the history of any given city or place we have to take into account the geography of said place. It is of the utmost importance that we recognize geographical patterns in our area since it will give sense of scale to our reconstruction and it is also part of the history that we want to portray.
So, how do we start? Personally, It’s been ages since I worked with QGIS, so it took me a while to figure the whole thing again. This program allows us to work with georeferenced data, scales, shape files and a myriad of files that will prove to be relevant for our workflow.
First, I got all the elevation data from IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional), this website contains a lot of geographical data in the form of aerial photography, LiDAR, shape files, maps, etc… (Spain only) I downloaded the Tiff files since it allowed me to visualize the 3D model of my terrain on QGIS thanks to the Qgis2threejs addon.
2. Study of all roman remains, archaeology and bibliography.
Building 3D models from historical accounts (in the form of material remains, written bibliography and whatnot) is like having a puzzle of 1000 pieces… the problem is that you only have 50 pieces and the remaining parts are forever lost. And the house is on fire. So we really have to rely on our direct evidences and, in this case, other roman cities built within the same period of time (from I BC - I AD). So most of our work is interpretation, but always based on factual data and published papers. Imagination has little to say on this matter.
So, in my case I download on QGIS the land registry of the city and mapped all the places where Roman items were found (coins, ceramic, structures, walls, …). This is the result:
I still have to contact a couple of people whom are experts of Roman urbanism and archaeology to shed a little bit of light on this, but this is what we have so far. Most of the remains are located in the center of the city. Problems? The forum is still missing and the walls or pomerium is subject to different interpretations (far from clear) since we lack reasonable evidence to pinpoint the boundaries of our city
This is an approximation of the roman walls of the city based on current evidence.
For the last couple of days I’ve been trying to make sense of all the archaeological data that is available in the form of papers, photos, documents and other type of data. The problem is that, unlike other roman settlements in Hispania (for example Ecija, in Sevilla), Acci is, for the most part, unbeknownst to us.
I tried to map the two main proposals that have been discussed in literature regarding roman urbanism in the city of Guadix. Here are the two main ones.
This is the first one, proposed back in the 90s if I remember correctly. The planimetry and city walls were based entirely on the Islamic structures, thus the result.
This proposal, made in the 2010s and onward, is based on the assumption that the higher part of the city (where the Islamic fortress is found) has little to no evidence of Roman occupation whatsoever. Therefore, there is no material evidence to support that this part was occupied during the roman period. This one is the one that convinces me the most.
I have been pretty busy lately. Last day I cleaned the plan of the city just to have a better reference so I can place the buildings much better. This is not the definitive plan as I am to discuss my hypothesis with some colleagues.
As you can see I have established a pretty readable map of the roman colony of Acci. What troubles me the most is that I do not have enough archaeological information to place the most important parts of the city (Forum, Cardus y Decumanus maximus, walls…) and make sense of all of it. The forum may well be in the intersection between both the Cardus and Decumanus, but there’s no material evidence to support such a claim. I decided to place it in the west part of the city, where the roman temple was found.
Thanks for your kind message! Yes, it is quite a big project, not only in terms of 3D modeling, but also the research part is huge. I still have a lot to do, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel now!
I am just filling up the blank spaces with more buildings. They are just the same models repeated over and over again with small variations in rotation and scale to avoid repetition. Once done, I’ll go into more details.
Alright, the forum is already completed. I decided to build a square plaza surrounded by a colonnade. The temple is right at the end of it.
Close to the temple is the roman thermae that is actually located where the forum was supposed to be. The actual Thermae has been built after the remains of the Baelo Claudia’s baths.
Besides, I have added 3 floor buildings (insulas) to add a bigger sense of occupation and scale.
Alright, I had a little talk with two university professors about roman urbanism and this case study. My initial hypothesis is not far off from academic consensus, but I have taken into account their views and I have updated the model…
Walls of the city have been removed (There is no archeological evidence of roman walls)
forum will stay, likely, in the place that it is now
Basilica added (there is no evidence for that, but I’ve been suggested to add it into the scene)
nymphaeum added (fountain)
Roman theatre added
Now I want to focus on the terrain and small details of the scene (smoke, trees, vegetation, road…) but I do not know how to do it.
Alright, Now I have the time to finish the project. I’ve been playing with vegeation, textures and such but I am not entirely happy about the results. I know I have to change things but I don’t know which things must be changed so I can make the scene look better!!
