M. Forte1 , S.J. Kay1, M.E. Bonfigli2, A. Guidazzoli2, M. Zane3
1 CNR-ITABC, Istituto per le Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali, Roma, Italy
2 CINECA Interuniversity Supercomputing Centre, Bologna, Italy
3 University of Modena, Italy

The Aksum Project (2000-2003) involves applications of advanced digital technologies for a detailed reconstruction of the archaeological landscape: analysis and classification by remote sensing and GIS, interpretation and presentation of the results through virtual reality and visual information systems. A relevant aspect of the project is a multidisciplinary approach, starting with the acquisition of the data during the fieldwork and, then, creating predictive classified maps of geomorphological and anthropic landscape, including all the paleoenvironmental factors. Using all these spatial data, we have created a virtual reality system (supported by OpenGl technologies) for the reconstruction and the interpretation of the archaeological landscape. In terms of VR we are constructing a Virtual GIS, a digital ecosystem of modelling and implementation of interactions and links to data related to the ancient (reconstructed environment) and modern landscape (observed environment). The environment can be explored by a guided tour or a free navigation, and the user can make alphanumeric and spatial queries (multimedia data html documents, multimedia data or GIS data ) about the objects available in the scene. A graphic interface has been designed in order to select objects (single objects, objects grouped by classes or object selected by a specific query) and control all the parameters of the application The implementation is multi platform: it runs either in a Virtual Theatre or on a VR desktop device.
Key words: Virtual GIS, Virtual Reality, Aksum, Archaeological Landscape, Virtual Theatre