Digital Restoration for Widespread Fruition of the Samnite Chamber Tombs

The aim of the study was to design a sensory experience which would enable contemporary users to appreciate artifacts which are remote in terms of time, space and contemporary cultural sensibility. The chamber tombs, a glorious example of Samnite civilization (IX– III century B.C.) offered a unique possibility to pursue this objective thanks to the peculiarities of the architectural paintings which paratactically decorate the chamber tomb walls. Rather than “freeze” the observers in a service space, the paintings seem to encourage them to explore the chamber and synaesthetically interact with the built environment. From a contemporary perspective these pictorial dynamics epitomize the emerging paradigm of real and virtual space organization where the real and the virtual combine and guide users towards interactive fruition. The developments in range based and image based techniques have made the surveying procedures more rapid and the representations more attractive. Remote fruition has become more flexible thanks to the advent of Information and Communication Technologies.