Aplicación de tecnologías digitales para la reconstrucción virtual de la Villa Romana de Salar (Granada, España): un ejemplo de transferencia del patrimonio arqueológico

Abstract

La villa romana de Salar (Salar, Granada) se ha convertido en uno de los principales referentes de la arquitectura rural de época romana en Hispania. El proyecto de investigación iniciado desde el año 2016, en colaboración entre el Ayuntamiento de Salar y la Universidad de Granada, ha supuesto el desarrollo de campañas de excavación estivas ininterrumpidas hasta la fecha. Estas intervenciones se han centrado en tres zonas (A, B y C), siendo objeto de este artículo las zonas A y B donde se ha excavado una zona de la pars urbana de una lujosa villa construida en el siglo IV d.C., sobre estructuras previas de época altoimperial. Destacan especialmente su articulación en torno a un peristilo, así como sus espacios de representación, triclinio, su rica decoración musiva, parietal y escultórica y sus innovadoras técnicas constructivas, como la empleada en la sala abovedada. Respecto al proyecto de investigación, desde su inicio se ha caracterizado por perseguir tres objetivos fundamentales: de investigación, conservación y transferencia del conocimiento generado a la sociedad, partiendo de una metodología de trabajo interdisciplinar, donde la implementación de técnicas digitales para la documentación arqueológica ha sido base imprescindible para su desarrollo. En la presente publicación presentamos la aplicación de técnicas digitales para la documentación arqueológica de la villa romana de Salar y su posterior reconstrucción hipotética, partiendo de un riguroso estudio científico previo y basado en los principios de la arqueología virtual. El resultado puede consultarse a través de una web de uso público donde se puede realizar la visita al estado actual de la excavación y a la interpretación reconstructiva en 3D, con diferentes informaciones sobre las fases históricas y edilicias, la planimetría y localización, un audiovisual e infografías en 3D, tanto en español como inglés.

The mechanical earthworks caused by the construction of a wastewater treatment plant in the municipality of Salar (Granada, Spain) (Fig. 1) in November 2004, brought to light various material remains dating from Roman times. After several years of archaeological interventions, and fundamentally, since the archaeological direction was taken over by a scientific team from the University of Granada in 2016, the Roman villa of Salar has been placed among one of the most important agricultural facilities of Roman Hispania, thanks to its exceptional architecture and the good conservation of its decorative elements as well. Only a large part of the aristocratic residence has been excavated. This constitutes a minimal section of what must have been an enormous rural exploitation, in view of the wealth and luxury shown by the excavated sections of the pars urbana corresponding to the Late Empire. The villa's construction during the 4th century AD entailed a profound transformation of the landscape of the Canuto site. The articulation of the different rooms of the villa on terraces, on at least three different levels, made it necessary to carry out important work to lower and cut the terrain, which had a decisive effect on the buildings described above. The architecture and decorative elements of the pars urbana, constructed according to the orders of its dominus, help us to understand the social realities of this rural enclave in the 4th century AD and the magnitude of the changes which took place (Fig. 2). Next to the peristyle is an apsidal space that opens directly onto the northwestern ambulacrum in the central part, on the same axis as the entrance to the triclinium. Of these rooms, the most outstanding is located on an axis with the peristyle and the triclinium, marking the spaces’ profound symmetry and theatricality. Regarding the research project, since its inception, it has been characterised by pursuing three fundamental objectives: research, conservation and transfer of the knowledge generated to society, based on an interdisciplinary work methodology, where the implementation of digital techniques for archaeological documentation has been an essential basis for its development (Rosa Henestrosa, Román Punzón, Moreno-Alcaide & Ruiz Montes, 2022). The methodology used in the reconstruction is based on the criteria established for Virtual Archaeology, based on the Seville Principles (López-Menchero & Grande, 2011). To do this, we formed an interdisciplinary team made up of professionals from archaeology, architecture and engineering, which has made it possible to generate a model with high historical rigour and great technical quality. Starting from the previously analysed work, generated from the interpretations of the archaeological excavations, a new planimetry was developed in vector Computer-Aided Design (CAD) format that would later allow it to be used as a basis for the three-dimensional (3D) modelling of the Roman villa (Fig. 5). With this vector planimetry, the hypothetical architectural sections of the building were also created, as well as the geometric bases for the geometric mosaics that the villa had. The first volumetric fit in the 3D modelling phase also served to answer questions related to the heights of the rooms and the resolution of the building's roofs. The Autodesk 3D Studio Max software was used to create the 3D modelling, and the Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Substance 3D Painter were used to create the textures. The project worked on the preparation of two different models of the 3D recreation, one for rendering infographics and 3D panoramas using the V-Ray rendering engine from Chaos Group and another for rendering in the Unreal Engine rendering engine from Epic Games. The result can be consulted through a public website where the user can take a virtual visit to the current state of the excavation and the reconstructive interpretation in 3D, with different information on the historical and building phases, the planimetry and location, an audio-visual and 3D infographics, both in Spanish and English.