Dalle fonti alla narrazione. Ricostruzione storica per il racconto della quotidianità

Description

The volume collects the proceedings of two seminars held between April and May 2017 at the University of Siena, focused on historical reconstruction understood in its various and complementary declinations: with the first meeting the themes of the reenactment and living history, while the second studied the representation of the results of archaeological investigations on specific material contexts. Archaeologists and reconstructors meet and confront each other, drawing mutual benefit and aiming for an ambitious common goal: to involve the public in superior quality archaeological communication, capable of combining scientific excellence and narrative vein. The approach adopted in fact starts from the consideration of how Italian archeology is experiencing a critical moment, attributable to the low propensity to transform one's skills into significant value even in a public perspective. In this scenario, the various contributions are united by the search for an innovative way that puts the materiality of history in the foreground, tackling cases that are very heterogeneous in terms of scale, approaches, methods and expected results. We then pass from the reconstruction of the face starting from the skull of excavated individuals, to the representation of the material culture of specific and archaeologically known cases. Reconstructions of individual real or imaginary characters are treated (reproducing their clothing, accessories, weapons, but also their behavior, social condition, daily life) and entire structures and settlements (in real scale as in plastic), arriving to operate syntheses on particular contexts and periods. The two souls, reconstruction and archeology, are therefore well represented in the publication and are integrated by reflections of a more general nature on public archeology and its potential for research, protection and communication. In a full-bodied introductory essay, written by Marco Valenti, the theoretical and practical guidelines are outlined for implementing the new approach proposed in the volume, discussing its current limits and, above all, showing its enormous potential for the future.