MuDE Herculaneum: 3D Digitisation of Artefacts

MuDE – Digital Museum of Herculaneum. 3D digitisation of Herculaneum archaeological artefacts. 2021/2023

This work is part of the “MuDE – Digital Museum of Herculaneum” project, funded under the PON Culture and Development programme, ERDF 2014–2020, Axis 1, Action 6c1b.
The initiative stems from the collaboration between the Herculaneum Archaeological Park (PA-ERCO) and the Packard Humanities Institute (HCP). Its aim is to enhance Herculaneum’s archaeological heritage and disseminate open-format data through a dedicated digital environment for both scientific research and public access.
MuDE is structured around four main areas: cataloguing and documentation, digitisation, user experience and software development.
As part of the project, ES carried out direct 3D surveys of artefacts within the broader digitisation effort involving 6,500 objects held in the Herculaneum storerooms. Data acquisition, using several integrated 3D-surveying methods, was conducted on a significant sample of 2,500 archaeological artefacts, diverse in material, morphology and size.