Digital Roman Forum: Virtual Model

From http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/about

From 1997 to 2003 the Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVRLab) created a digital model of the Roman Forum as it appeared in late antiquity. The notional date of the model is June 21, 400 A.D.

The purpose of the modeling project was to spatialize information and theories about how the Forum looked at this moment in time, which was more or less the height of its development as Rome's civic and cultural center. The digital model includes over twenty features (buildings and major monuments) filling up the western zone of the Roman Forum from the Temple of Vesta and Temple of Antoninus and Faustina on the east to the Tabularium facing the western slope of the Capitoline Hill.

With generous support from the National Science Foundation, the CVRLab was able to create a website about the digital Forum model from 2002 to 2005. The purposes of this site are: (1) to use the Internet to permit free use and easy viewing of the digital model by people all over the world; (2) to provide documentation for the archaeological evidence and theories utilized to create the model; and (3) to offer basic information about the individual features comprising the digital model so that their history and cultural context can be readily understood.

Explore using the Timemap (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/timemap ) or a Search (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/search )