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The survey of the Temple of Augustus and Goddess Roma
in Ankara
Paula BOTTERI*, Gabriele FANGI**, Eva Savina MALINVERNI**, Beatrice PINNA
CABONI***
* Department of Classics, University of Trieste, Italy
**Department ARDUS, University of Ancona, Italy
*** Monuments Superintendency of Rome, Italy
Caesar Augustus, the first roman Emperor, conquered the Galatia (Asia Minor) in 25 BC. Then a marble temple was built in Ancyra, today
Ankara. The shrine was consacreted to the Emperor and to Rome. After the death of Augustus, the text of his last will, written by himself,
was engraved in front of his mausoleum in Rome. A copy of this document was also carved on the walls of the temple in Ankara both in
Latin and Greek. The text is the most important historical inscription of the ancient world, bearing the high deeds of Augustus, the so-
called Res Gestae Divi Augusti. In 1997 the University of Trieste (Italy) started a research on the temple of Augustus for surveying and
studying the inscriptions and the whole monument. The photogrammetric survey of the inscriptions and of the temple have been already
accomplished. 3D model have been set up, for Virtual Reality, both passive and active. A Digital Surface Model (DSM) of the entrance
door of the temple has been derived. There are little hopes to save the monument, mainly for the amount of the expenses for its restoration.
A dedicated web site has been prepared; the surveys works have been made to allow historians and archaeologists studying the inscriptions
and the temple. We hope to attract the attention of the World Cultural Eleritage people for this monument. We carried out also a coarse and
fast photogrammetric survey of Hadrianic temple of Zeus in Aizanoi (or Aezanoi), in central Anatolia, given that it has broad similarities
with the Augusteum (temple of Augustus) in Ankara. It is necessary to do a more complete shape, allowing more accurate comparisons, for
a better knowledge, to be done. Quick and fast photogrammetric techniques, although not enough accurate for restoration, are suitable for
geometric modeling and for animation. We are making an attempt to save at least the memory of Augustus in Ankara!
Keywords: Epigraph, Archaeology, Photogrammetry, Survey, Restoration, Digital Surface Model, VRML, Virtual Reality, Visualisation
1. THE SO-CALLED MONUMENTUM
ANCYRANUM
The pronaos only and the side walls of the cella remain of the
original majestic temple called Augusteum. The temple
(measuring 36x55m) faces west like several Hellenistic
sanctuaries (from the model of the architect Hermogenes,
third/second century B.C.). Inside the pronaos the Augustan
inscription is carved on the stones of the wall, while the Greek
translation has been engraved outside on the southwest wall of
the cella.
The building bearing the exceptional Augustan document is
dramatically deteriorating. The words of the text engraved
marble remind the histirical transition from the Republican Age
to Principate. These unequalled inscriptions, cultural heritage of
mankind, are undergoing irreversible deterioration caused by
pollution, seismic disaster and climatic factors as well as man
made damage.
2. THE ANCYRA PROJECT
The programme, named Ancyra Project (from the Roman name
of Ankara) started in 1977 in the Department of Classics in the
Faculty of Humanities at the University of Trieste.
The main scientific objective of the project was a close
examination of the epigraphic content of the monument in view
of the publication of a new critical edition of the Greek text of
the Res gestae Divi Augusti, and a metrical and photogrammetric
survey of the epigraphs and all the remains of the temple.
