Is there someone still convinced that humanistic research is not able to attract significant funds and lead a multi-disciplinary and highly innovative project? And that, in addition to achieving important scientific results, it is not able to offer a realistic contribution to local government priorities, such as supporting landscape protection and urban planning policies? The "Mappa" project is ready to prove sceptics wrong. The aim of the project is to develop a map of archaeological potential of the urban and periurban areas of Pisa as a predictive tool for protecting the city's archaeological heritage and for steering its development guidelines.
The project will last two years and involve a wide range of professionals including archaeologists, historians, architectural historians, geologists, geomorphologists, mathematicians and statistics. The project is coordinated by Professor Maria Letizia Gualandi from the Department of Archaeological Sciences, together with the Departments of Earth Sciences (project contacts: Prof. Marta Marta Pappalardo and Giovanni Sarti) and of Mathematics (project contacts: Prof. Dario Bini and Prof. Sergio Steffè). "Mappa" also involves the Municipality of Pisa, the Direzione regionale per i Beni culturali e paesaggistici (Regional Directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage of Tuscany), the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana (Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany) and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici, Paesaggistici, Artistici, Storici ed Etnoantropologici per le province di Pisa e Livorno (Superintendency for Architectural, Landscape, Artistic, Historical and Ethno-anthropological Heritage for the Provinces of Pisa and Livorno). With a total project budget of 800,000 Euros, the project has been financed for over 600,000 Euros with the PAR-FAS funds of Regione Toscana. "MAPPA" was one of the 24 awarded projects among the over 100 projects submitted and was the only one funded in the field of humanities.
The project stems from a scientific approach – the calculation of the archaeological potential of a specific area – that has spread in English speaking countries over at least two decades, yet has only recently appeared in Italy during the past few years. Pisa, therefore, is the first case study on an urban area conducted at national level and, given the city's size and its historical and topographic features could represent an operational model for application in similar cities, both in Tuscany and in other Italian and European areas. The final research result could be the creation of a spin-off capable of exporting standardised methodologies and procedures and, together, of training new skilled figures capable of coordinating inter-disciplinary teams.
The research activities conducted by the project team will seek to create a map that, starting from acquired archaeological information, combines historical-archaeological data with data from geological and geophysical surveying and prospecting, geomorphologic reconstructions, historical mapping and registers, toponymic data and analysis of urban construction elements. Further processing, carried out on the basis of mathematical and coded interpretative models, will allow the team to make assumptions on the higher or lower chance of archaeological remains in areas of which we have no existing information today. Consequently, the map of archaeological potential will become a vital tool to learn and safeguard Pisa's archaeological heritage, since providing a well-defined picture of space organisation during various historical ages. Furthermore, it will develop an accessible and easy-to-use digital archive of archaeological data: a tool of great significance that, so far, has not been developed.
Finally, the map will support urban planning policies in contexts where archaeological remains encounter the building or environmental transformation needs of an area. "With the introduction of new legislation – explains Prof. Gualandi – evaluating archaeological potential is essential for steering local government policies. For this reason, the map will serve as a tool for compensating between public/private urban expansion needs and the community's interest in protecting and safeguarding common heritage".
More about the project on: http://mappaproject.arch.unipi.it/