Research
Research Projects
The Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) conducts a suite of innovative research projects in Sicily and Malta that leverage digital archaeology, remote sensing, and 3D visualization to document, preserve, and reinterpret Mediterranean cultural heritage.
In Sicily, one flagship effort, the Heloros Advanced Digital Exploration and Surveying (HADES) project, digitally 鈥渆xcavates鈥� the ancient Greek city of Heloros in southeastern Sicily by integrating legacy excavation data with new geospatial and 3D documentation to reconstruct its urban layout and reveal overlooked features without extensive invasive digging. Complementing this, the Archaeological Heritage in Late Antique and Byzantine Sicily (ARCHLabs) project operates as an interdisciplinary research and summer field school focused on the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Roman Villa del Casale at Piazza Armerina, applying methods such as terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry, LiDAR, ground-penetrating radar, and GIS to study Late Antique and Byzantine contexts while training emerging scholars. Additionally, IDEx works with Sicilian academic partners on the Virtual Sicily project aimed at the 3D digitization of that Sicilian archaeological heritage deemed physically or digitally inaccessible, relatively unknown or poorly documented, potentially endagered or in need of a stronger digital presence online.
In Malta, the Melite Civitas Romana project combines excavation, remote sensing, and 3D digitization to explore the Roman Domus of Rabat and its surrounding urban area, including the virtual cataloguing of museum collections and identification of new excavation targets via geophysical survey.
IDEx also pursues broader landscape-scale digitization with Life and Death in Roman Sicily and Malta in 3D, which creates high-resolution 3D records of villas, catacombs, and hypogea to enhance interpretation of domestic and funerary practices, and Prehistory of Malta in 3D, focused on megalithic architectures such as Borg in-Nadur using laser scanning and digital photogrammetry to support archaeo-astronomical analysis and long-term conservation.
Together, these projects exemplify IDEx鈥檚 commitment to advancing archaeological research through digital documentation, accessibility, and interdisciplinary collaboration across critical Mediterranean landscapes. The many publicationts produced and software developed are a testament to the rigouros research conducted by our team.