Discovering Pompeii

The conference focused on the results of the first year of the Project of Relevant National Interest (PRIN), funded in Italy by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR). SCORPiò-NIDI, its short name, investigates and analyzes the ballistic impacts found on the extrados of Pompeii's perimeter walls. The city's exceptional history ensures that the damage was inflicted by Roman artillery.Digital documentation of the cavities provided virtual casts used for reverse-engineering analyses. The results enabled the reconstruction of terminal ballistic parameters from the geometric configuration of the cavities. Experimental activities converged on the same objective. The calculated, objectively verifiable parameters will be used to reconstruct accurate replicas of scorpions and ballistae for display both online and offline in support of dedicated platforms.