Heritage digitalisation to preserve memory. Studying the archaeological evidence of Herdonia through the measure and the sign

The Apulian city of Herdonia is known for its remarkable architecture from the Republican and Imperial periods, but the archaeological site shows a historical stratification covering a wider time span than the Roman era. Since the 1960s, the site has been well documented with the studies of Professor Mertens first and the University of Foggia later, but several excavation campaigns have passed and exposure to weathering and lack of continuous maintenance are causing a slow transformation of the ancient structures compared to when they were first brought to light. In 2023 an Agreement was signed between the Secretariat for Apulia of the Ministry of Culture and the ArCoD Department of Polytechnic University of Bari to study the site through a scientific survey campaign using advanced technologies for data acquisition and processing. Surveying structures once again freed from vegetation to record their material and visual consistency in their current state of conservation means fixing their image in time, making them usable for studies and research also in the future, even in the hypothesis that any event could determine their definitive loss. In addition, the transposition of information from the survey into a digital environment and its restitution through modelling and drawing are necessary interpretative acts to complete the picture of knowledge on the architecture, the city, the landscape, fundamental in the case of site recovery and valorization projects.