Urban archeology in historic city: virtual reconstruction of the roman provincial capital of Tarraco

Architecture is in many cases the most important archaeological object in an excavation; however, its study does not usually go beyond the mere cataloguing of the remains. For many years, it was the architects who were responsible for giving a complete picture of the missing buildings. This long tradition was interrupted in the twentieth century and the three-dimensional visualization of many archaeological sites was no longer part of their study.

In this context, the importance of undertaking the 3D reconstruction of Roman Tarragona goes beyond illustrating a possible image of the city in the 2nd century AC: it means providing a key element in the already long debate on classical architecture in the provinces, the occupation of the territory or the metaphysical relations between man and nature in the Roman world.

José Alejandro Beltrán-Caballero is an architect, PhD in Architecture (Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña), associate researcher at the Seminar on Ancient Topography (SETOPANT) and professor at Rovira I Virgili University (Tarragona, Spain). As part of his research field, ancient settlements in relation to water management and landscape interpretation, Dr. Beltrán-Caballero was Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, has lectured in Spain, Italy, United States, Colombia and Peru and has also collaborated in projects for the virtual reconstruction of archaeological sites in Europe (Tarragona and Rome) and South America (Cusco).