NATURAL/HUMAN EVENTS AND URBAN TRANSFORMATION: WHEN THE ARCHITECTURAL AND NATURAL LAYERS CHEAT THE INTERPRETATION

Abstract: When reading and interpreting an archaeological area, or an urban asset developed over an archaeological trace, all the remains, elements and evidence are seen according to the creation of the main idea developed in the mind of the archaeologist, the architect, the cultural heritage expert. But what appears in present time for the reading is the result of a long series of events, of changes happened in time, each of them creating a layer or behaviour in the way people used that place. The results of all these stratification may produce difficulties in reading the real history of a place or may even cause misinterpretations from the people living in the nearby area (old and new, they are the so-called urban legends) or “sensational” interpretations supported by the will of building a news or promote personal theories. In the following paper, a series of archaeological, architectural and urban case studies will be analyzed. In between of them:the Ventotene Otium Villa from the Roman Age, the Rupestrian Settlements in Kapadokya, certain remains from the Roman ships of Pisa archaeological site, the façade of Palazzo Uguccioni in Firenze, the “legend” connected to certain military defensive tunnels taken for extremely long underground passages in various Towns. For each of these studies, some reflections will be done on the base of specific surveys and/or studies, in the try to define what creates the “artificial” story, and to show how specific investigations, like digital survey, thermal and geomagnetic investigations, or even simple reasonings may contribute to a correct interpretation and how, in a certain case, the popular “belief” cannot be beaten or changed by proper studies, no matter how weird it is.