A mathematical approach to inverse problems arising in cultural heritage preservation and dissemination

Cultural heritage preservation and dissemination have become fundamental aspects of the human experience. Petroglyphs are valuable artifacts that provide insights into ancient civilizations and can be found worldwide, realized on rock surfaces by incising, picking, carving, or abrading. They represent ancient human rock art composed of messages through glyphs, i.e., elementary symbols or pictures. Still, their preservation and analysis can be challenging due to factors like degradation, location, and the sheer volume of data to process. The project deals with petroglyphs from protected areas such as caves or overhangs in the Sardinia island archeological regions.

The purpose of the project will be twofold. Firstly, we will provide archaeologists with mathematically sound software and tools to discover new sites easily. These methods will require mostly inexpensive tools and will be non-invasive. Secondly, we will produce automatic software for analyzing sites’ artifacts and determining their nature and properties.

For further details, please refer to the project website.

Announcement

PRIN 2022 Decreto Direttoriale n. 1409 del 14-9-2022

Application field: discovery, dissemination, and preservation of cultural heritage

Geographic scope: National

Start date: 30 November 2023

End date: 29 November 2025

Project website: https://prin.unica.it/math4charm/