Not far from Rome, in the province of Orbetello, is Doganella (VII-III cent BCE), home to one of the most affluent and important Etruscan colonies of Etruria. Here, Duke University’s Professor Dr. Maurizio Forte leads a team of archaeologists who are implementing a new fully digital workflow to preserve entire excavation sites and their findings for greater accessibility worldwide.

The story behind how Doganella transformed lies in the buried structures and artifacts that await the team just below the surface. Using a combination of geospatial data recording, remote sensing and drone photogrammetry, Dr. Forte and Antonio Lo Piano, a doctorate student in classical studies, leads a research team in creating a 3D replication of the entire site – and there’s a lot of ground to cover.

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