Heritage, Volume 6, Issue 5 (May 2023) – 33 articles

Brownfields particularly in old city centers reveal the story of abandonment and concealment, shaping the identity and collective memory of urban areas. Therefore, research and practice must prioritize both reutilization and heritage values. This study centers on the regeneration of historical brownfields in Tehran, the capital of Iran, and assesses public perceptions of redeveloped historical brownfields. Based on their approach to patrimony, the study categorized reclaimed brownfields as interpretive, cultural, or ecological sites. A questionnaire was administered to citizens who visited three sampled sites (n = 385) to collect data. According to the results of principal component analysis (PCA), women preferred the non-economic component, which includes environmental, social, heritage, and aesthetic dimensions, while men and older, highly educated respondents preferred the economic dimension in relation to brownfields. Despite positive attitudes towards brownfield regeneration, environmental and heritage dimensions, especially intangible heritage, are less well-known. However, heritage justifies and determines brownfield redevelopment. Increasing commitment to preserving heritage during brownfield regeneration has a positive effect on the perception of respondents. Full article

In this study, the assessment of uncertainties introduced at different stages of the elemental analysis of archaeological ceramics has been described using the example of the Neolithic pottery sherds from Popovsky Lug (eastern Siberia). To evaluate the uncertainty introduced by sampling due to ceramic heterogeneity, three original sherds were cut into small subsamples. Powdered subsamples (250–350 mg) were analyzed using wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods, and the variations between analytical results for independent subsamples were compared with the variations introduced during the analytical process (measurement and sample preparation). It was shown that 250–350 mg of ceramic is sufficient to obtain good reproducibility (2–15%) between separate subsamples for most major and trace elements, even for the heterogeneous Neolithic ceramics included in this study. The differing behavior of concentration variations in some elements was explained by measuring the ceramic cross-sections by scanning electron microscopy and micro-X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, as well as by the theoretic modeling of the sampling error. The described workflow can be useful in finding uncertainties in elemental analysis results, which may affect the interpretation of bulk chemical composition in ceramic provenance studies. Full article

Urban architectural heritage and its social manifestations are immersed in dynamics beyond their origin and conservation vision. Contemporary society reinterprets, reconfigures and resignifies it according to its own logics of empowerment. In this context, this article addresses the case of a bridge in the Historic Center of Cuenca (Ecuador) known by the names of Mariano Moreno Bridge, La Escalinata Bridge or Vivas Nos Queremos Bridge. It describes its patrimonial situation in terms of its values and its relationship with gender. Because of its social implications, this study is divided into two parts: a bibliographic analysis of the historical evolution of the monument, followed by a discussion of its heritage status, and the presentation of the design, validation and application of a qualitative tool to determine the values associated with the property. This tool is used in a focus group of actors to analyze the feminist activism developed on the bridge between 2020 and 2022. This research shows how cultural heritage can be known, valued and used from an inclusive perspective and how public space can be subject to processes of resignification. This bridge became a non-place, a forgotten and a meaningless site. However, due to the struggle for the vindication of women’s rights and freedom of expression, it has taken on a new meaning, becoming an integral part of the contemporary collective imaginary, regardless of its uncertain nomenclature. Full article

This research project investigates the potential of 360-panorama tours to improve the situated and contextual interpretation, virtual visitation, and spatial understanding of recorded or simulated built heritage sites. Our chosen case study was the Subiaco Hotel, a significant heritage building designed by Summerhayes Architecture, which we documented using 360-degree photographs and linked with other media to create an interactive 360-panorama tour. Today, 360-degree panorama tours such as Google Street View enable the virtual exploration of heritage sites and historic buildings. They demonstrate limited interaction and immersion across a range of platforms and devices, without the requirement of expensive virtual reality headsets, but typically do not integrate other media to leverage spatially richer ways to communicate the historical developments of architectural interiors and exteriors. The primary goals of this study were to establish a comprehensive step-by-step workflow for creating an interactive tour of a significant heritage site, demonstrate how other media such as text, videos, and 3D models can be linked, gather feedback from cultural heritage professionals, and offer future research directions and development guidelines. Apart from detailing an optimized workflow for developing interactive 360-degree virtual tours for heritage buildings, we also offer guidelines for optimal panoramic tour creation and implementation. Full article

Nowadays, the research in the fields of conservation and restoration is focusing on recording large amounts of data and information in order to obtain highly accurate surveys that include most details of constructions. Documenting and surveying are fundamental activities in achieving the successful preservation of cultural heritage, but also in implementing efficient strengthening interventions of structures. The applications of methods and techniques that link the disciplines of geometrical surveys and structural analyses are still fragmented, and further research is necessary to fully transfer site information into structural models. In this article, the authors propose a methodology with which to link different restoration fields, with the aim of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the interoperability between surveys (carried out through detailed restitution from point clouds), heritage building information modeling (HBIM), and structural analyses to connect three different disciplines. The goal is to find a synthesis model that brings together historical and geometric characteristics, but also physical–mechanical properties, for a structural evaluation through a finite element model (FEM). The case study of the Escuela José Mariano Méndez is analyzed, an extremely damaged historical adobe building in Santa Ana, the second largest city of El Salvador; it is considered fundamental to the national economy, particularly after the “coffee boom” in the late 1800s. The site, located near the historic center, is also known as “Antigua Escuela de Artes y Oficios” and embodies the architectural traditions of the region, being built in adobe and stone. Roma Tre University and the Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia (SECULTURA) are partners in this research project to document and restore the historical and cultural value of this site. Full article

Early Japanese books, classical humanities resources in Japan, have great historical and cultural value. However, Kuzushi-ji, the old character in early Japanese books, is scratched, faded ink, and lost due to weathering and deterioration over the years. The restoration of deteriorated early Japanese books has tremendous significance in cultural revitalization. In this paper, we introduce augmented identity loss and propose enhanced CycleGAN for deteriorated character restoration, which combines domain discriminators and augmented identity loss. This enhanced CycleGAN makes it possible to restore multiple levels of deterioration in the early Japanese books. It obtains the high readability of the actual deteriorated characters, which is proved by higher structural similarity(SSIM) and accuracy of deep learning models than standard CycleGAN and traditional image processing. In particular, SSIM increases by 8.72%, and the accuracy of ResNet50 for damaged characters improves by 1.1% compared with the competitive CycleGAN. Moreover, we realize the automatic restoration of pages of early Japanese books written about 300 years ago. Full article

The unusual resin from some species of Elaeagia, a genus now found in certain parts of Central America and South America, was probably first utilized by native peoples in Colombia more than a thousand years ago. It became a crucial part of often elaborately decorated objects made in the southwestern city of Pasto in the colonial period, and it has continued to be used there up to the present, in which it is at the core of a local craft tradition. The resin was also utilized for about 300 years by the Inka, mainly to decorate qeros (ceremonial drinking cups). The resin is often referred to as mopa-mopa and, specifically in Colombia, as barniz de Pasto. The botany, chemistry, properties, and analysis of Elaeagia resin are reviewed, along with a brief survey of the history of its use. Full article

The loss of archaeological heritage continues today, because of both natural disasters and human-made actions. Alarmingly, a significant amount of the destruction is perpetrated by looters and illegal excavations. This problem is not a new one. However, it has increased exponentially in recent years, especially in countries which witnessed internal turmoil (i.e., the Arab Spring) but also throughout Europe. Local authorities struggle to provide adequate controls because of a lack of human resources, budget constraints or technological know-how. This paper describes a multimodal documentation and monitoring workflow applied to an archaeological site for which, due to the sensitivity of the topic, no specific details can be publicly disclosed. The techniques used include UAV aerial surveys, image-based modelling, change detection, relief visualization and GIS mapping. Thanks to the analysis of the multitemporal datasets, it was possible to assess the extension and spatial progression of illegal excavation over a two-year period. Full article

Folding screens were very popular in New Spain beginning in the late 16th century. From the second half of the 17th century on, many Chinese and some European lacquer folding screens circulated in New Spain, inspiring the development of Novohispanic lacquer, imitation lacquer, and Chinese-style folding screens. The decorative technique of these Novohispanic folding screens has not been studied, but evidence suggests that some of them were made with techniques that have pre-Columbian roots, others with European lacquer techniques, and others still with paint and varnish adapted to produce a shiny surface resembling that of Asian lacquer. Thus, 18th-century New Spain was the place where there was the widest variety of lacquer folding screens in the world. Hitherto this variety has remained unnoticed, but studying it is essential to understand to what extent the globalization of the taste for lacquer gave rise to innovative solutions in the Americas. Full article

Devotional artworks represent a valuable form of art, as they are evidence of religious worship and the demo-ethno-anthropological, as well as historical-artistic, heritage of a community, which is why they definitely belong to the cultural identity of a geographic area. The Madonna della Croce wall painting is an example of devotional art preserved today in the homonymous church in Triggiano (Bari, Italy). The presented study concerns the characterization of pigments used in the painting. The identification of pictorial materials had the aim of providing a contribution to knowledge about the painting, the history of restorations, and other historical events, and to increase the information about the Apulian painting to better reconstruct the social, cultural, and economic contexts of the region. Through a non-invasive and fast methodological approach, including portable digital microscopy, colorimetry, fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF); 42 points considered on coloured areas were analysed in situ, and results on pigment identification were achieved. According to the local wall painting tradition, red and yellow ochres, green earth, vine black, massicot, and lead-tin yellow were found. Furthermore, both indigo-woad dye and a mixture of vine black and yellow ochre to obtain a blueish colour on the Virgin’s mantle were highlighted. Full article

This work contributes to the knowledge of historical contexts that have radically mutated over centuries and have lost their original characteristics. In these cases, information techniques and technologies can support the reconstruction of peculiarities in the digital domain and reveal their distinctive traits. This process applies to the architectural complex of Villa Farnesina in Rome, the realization of which involved the collaboration of influential artists from the 16th century; in particular, we focus on the Stables building, which no longer exists and can only be visualized by joining survey data, historiographic data, and metric measurements in digital and virtual assets. Starting from an integrated digital survey project, the paper highlights the potential of the graphic analysis of iconographic-archival and cartographic components for reconstructing a 3D model of the original appearance of the building. Furthermore, the correlation of geometric data and information parameters allows for the construction of a digital model to fulfill the demand for the transmission of interdisciplinary information to portray this jewel of Renaissance Rome to real and virtual tourism consumers. Full article

This study is addressed at the cultural heritage of the UNESCO historical centre of Urbino (Italy) through the focus on a very peculiar building and ornamental carbonate porous (spongy) stone also found in the opus quadratum Roman dry walls. For these rocks, the mathematician and historian Bernardino Baldi (16th century AD) and the mineralogist Francesco Rodolico (middle of the 20th century AD) introduced, respectively, the popular terms of Tufo spugnoso or Pietra Spugna. Physical observations and stable isotope data (δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O) of these rocks allowed, for the first time, their classification as calcareous tufas, thus contributing to the valorization of the stone heritage of the city. This carbonate lithotype was formed by the chemical precipitation of CaCO₃, driven by the CO₂ degassing of supersaturated calcium-bicarbonate-rich waters, coupled with the passive encrustations of organic material in continental environments. Radiocarbon analyses dated these stones mostly between 9100 and 4700 yr. BP when a maximum growth of these carbonate continental deposits occurred in Mediterranean regions and northern Europe, i.e., during the Holocene Atlantic climatic optimum. Work is still in progress on a perched springline of calcareous tufas found along the Metauro Valley (a few km from Urbino), being good candidates for provenance, at least for those blocks exploited by the Romans and successively reused in the architectural framework of Urbino. Full article

Adobe has been used globally for millennia. In the US Southwest, cultural heritage sites made of adobe materials have lasted hundreds of years in an arid/semi-arid environment. A common prediction across multiple climate change models, however, is that rainfall intensity will increase in the US Southwest. This increased erosivity threatens the long-term protection and preservation of these sites, and thus resource managers are faced with selecting effective conservation practices. For this reason, modeling tools are needed to predict climate change impacts and plan for adaptation strategies. Many existing strategies, including patching damaged areas, building protective caps and shelter coating walls are already commonly utilized. In this study, we modeled adobe block construction, subjected extant walls to a local 100-year return interval rainfall intensity, and tested earthen-coat-based strategies to minimize the deterioration of earthen fabric. Findings from the resultant linear models indicate that the patching of earthen architecture alone will not prevent substantial damage, while un-amended encapsulation coats and caps provide similar, and significantly greater protection than patching. The use of this model will enable local heritage resource managers to better target preservation methods for a return on investment of the material and labor costs, resulting in better preservation overall and the retention of culturally valuable resources. Full article

Supporting collections care professionals and facilities managers to understand their preservation environments is of increasing importance as the field of cultural heritage grapples with the competing demands of environmental and financial sustainability and the desire to broaden access to collections. As such, the development of preservation indices that distill complex data into accessible tools can help collections care professionals understand the impact of access and preservation decisions and how they influence longevity. The IPI eClimateNotebook^® Preservation Metrics were some of the earliest dose-response models developed for preservation, linking the rates of degradation and physical deformation to environmental variables and material properties. In this review article, we revisit the original aims and applications of the IPI Preservation Metrics with a view to aiding their interpretation and practical application for managing collection environments alongside a discussion of their limitations. Full article

The use of gold for artefact productions underwent substantial developments during Iron Age in western Europe, with the diversification of alloy compositions and the introduction of new technologies and aesthetics. This work presents a detailed study of a Late Iron Age earring from the western Iberian Peninsula and a discussion taking into consideration the alloys and technologies used at the time. The earring has a complex structure, composed of block- and strip-twisted wires and granulation. Characterization by multifocus optical microscopy, portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF), micro-XRF and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) were performed to obtain information on the chemical composition and manufacturing techniques. Results show that the earring was manufactured with wires and granules made of a silver-rich alloy, covered with a gold-rich layer 45 $\mathsf{\mu }$m thick on average, which acted as an external coating making the entire earring resemble gold. This is a rare example of an Iron Age gilded earring, and its detailed study provides further information on the manufacturing solutions adopted by the Iron Age goldsmiths. Full article

This article reveals the recovery of a compass balance from a Manila galleon that was wrecked in the 16th century off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, and discusses the possibility that it was made in Spain. Based on an analysis of navigation treaties, written in the context of the training of pilots by the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade), it is revealed in detail how nautical compasses were manufactured in Spain during that period. As a result of the review of the nautical literature of that century, it is concluded that the compass was the most important nautical instrument on board and that its simple design allowed any malfunction to be resolved during the journey. In addition, the authors affirm that the design of this compass was very similar to those suggested in the European navigation traditions of the 16th century, and thus, it seems quite possible that the compass rocker found in Baja California was made in the Hispanic world. Full article

The cultural heritage sector increasingly integrates augmented and virtual reality (VR) solutions to meet dissemination and interpretation needs for its collections. As research in the field grows, the required entertainment and learning impacts of such applications are rising. This study presents a VR museum that aims to facilitate an understanding of cultural heritage. More specifically, an exhibition was designed, curated and developed in a VR environment based on a framework that encourages the public’s interaction with the artworks and experiential learning through activities that utilize VR functionalities in a meaningful way. This framework was applied in a contemporary art museum where the description of artistic concepts is not always obvious to the general public due to the abstract forms of the artworks or the particularities of different artistic movements. This paper focuses on the application development and three user experience evaluations (museum experts, technical experts and general audience). The results were positive regarding the perceived sense of control, usability and the feelings of the user, including their sense of entertainment. Additionally, the participants valued the educational value of the developed activity types and their usefulness. Moreover, the users were interested in exploring the cultural heritage content available in the exhibition, and they would suggest the application to colleagues or friends. Full article

Over the last years, the exponential progress of technology introduced a broader population of researchers and developers to the use of Virtual Reality (VR) devices in numerous contexts, e.g., gaming, simulations, and culture dissemination. Recently, cultural heritage has also been supported by motivational experiences and other improvements designed explicitly for specific users (visitors, researchers, and domain experts). In this context, we propose a protocol within a digital environment, using innovative, non-invasive, and non-destructive methods for the technological enhancement, education, and dissemination of ancient human remains. The presented case study is focused on sexual dimorphism in the human skull; several 3D models are digitally generated from female and male skull references exploiting an algorithmic approach with statistical analysis, e.g., Principal Component Analysis (PCA); then, the models are made available in a virtual environment with a Head Mounted Display (HMD) and can also be interacted with via a touchless approach (hands-free). Tests conducted with segmented populations provided promising results. Full article

Crystopal is a mechanically strong yet highly decorative plastic with a translucent and crackled appearance that was produced in the 1960s by the artist and plastics engineer Armand G. Winfield (1919–2009) and his company, Crystopal, Ltd. Many of Winfield’s collected plastic objects are housed within the Syracuse University Libraries, but some lack complete archival descriptions, including plastic compositions. To address this, the non-invasive and non-destructive determination of the polymer identities in Winfield’s artifacts was performed by Raman spectroscopy. Our studies generally begin with the database matching of an artifact spectrum to that of a polymer standard, but when objects known to be fabricated from Crystopal were analyzed, a database of over 100 representative polymers failed to yield the chemical identity of the plastic. However, the Raman spectrum of Crystopal displayed a unique chemical fingerprint that revealed it to be composed of an unsaturated polyester crosslinked with styrene. This Raman spectrum was added to the database and used as reference for the unambiguous identification of Crystopal artifacts, distinguishing them from decorative plastics with similar appearances. The addition of Crystopal to the polymer database provides a pathway toward establishing artifact provenance and preserving objects crafted from this unique and decorative plastic. Full article

Heritage rehabilitation can be a sustainable operation when it succeeds in conveying the intangible, historical, artistic, and symbolic value of the building and, at the same time, to ensure the preservation of soil and material resources. The sustainability of the operation must cover the entire life cycle of the building, starting with the management of materials on the construction site, which allows for an increase in its durability while safeguarding its residual performance. This paper, therefore, outlines a process for the sustainable management of materials at the building redevelopment site using the history of the building and the life cycles of related materials. In particular, the following are explored: residual performance of historical and coeval materials, their endogenous and exogenous reuse of materials in the redevelopment project, the traceability aimed at controlling the supply chain, and the material/component identity card. The latter evolves dynamically, providing useful information for carrying out environmental assessments and monitoring the building’s maintenance cycle. The process is applied to a case study involving the redevelopment of the historical built heritage following the 2009 earthquake that struck the city of L’Aquila and neighbouring territories. The case study demonstrated the validity of the method and at the same time made it possible to introduce an innovative process in the territory, raising awareness among those working in the sector of the value of choices that have environmental and economic advantages. Full article

In this communication we aim to provide an overview of Earth observation and remote sensing in archaeology following a non-traditional literature review approach, that is, investigating recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and language models. Towards this direction, the generative pre-trained transformer (ChatGPT) language model was used to extract relevant information. The ChatGPT language model—recently released by OpenAI—appears to provide an alternative way for retrieving comprehensive information for various thematic topics. ChatGPT is currently operated on a beta version by millions of users worldwide, free of access for a limited period. In this study, specific queries related to Earth observation and remote sensing in archaeology were made by the authors to the ChatGPT. Innovations and limitations are discussed, while a comparison with traditional bibliographic analysis is performed. Full article

The Earth Sciences Museum of the University of Bari (Italy) boasts the presence of a precious and complete nineteenth-century collection of white marbles and colored stones used by the Romans to embellish their buildings and, afterward, reuse in new buildings and artworks for their high symbolic and aesthetic value. This collection, arranged by Francesco and Filippo Belli, consists of 577 samples and a printed inventory and other documents, which allowed to reconstruct the history of the collection. Another collection of 29 marble samples was donated to the museum in 2010 by the Armenise family. Both collections represent a very useful reference tool in provenance studies for marble pieces at the archaeological and artistic sites and for samples of other collections. The systematic organization of these collections and their sharing among scholars, especially through the web network, is clearly essential. The work presented here focuses on the most recent discoveries about Belli’s collection, on the results of the identification of Armenise’s marbles and stones, and above all, on the actions undertaken in recent years in order to valorize this museum’s heritage. Specifically, both collections were reorganized following novel insights about lithotypes and the provenance of each sample, a detailed database including data on each sample was created, and a website reporting information and images of the two collections was built in order to guarantee the correct dissemination of data. Full article

Desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) is an ambient mass spectrometry technique that shows great potential for the analysis of fragile heritage objects in situ. This article focuses on the application of a recently built DESI source to characterize natural dyestuffs in historical textiles and a presentation of initial imaging experiments. Optimization of the instrumental settings, geometrical parameters, and solvent system on the DESI-MS analysis was conducted on rhodamine B samples. Some variables, including an increased flow rate, a narrower range of optimized geometrical variables and a solvent system without additives, were applicable to both early synthetic and natural dyes. Direct dye turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) could be reliably analyzed on both silk and wool, as could anthraquinone standards without mordanting. These preliminary results suggest that the dye application process (direct, mordant, vat) has a large impact on the ionization efficiency of DESI-MS. Imaging trials highlighted the suitability of DESI-MS for the analysis of patterned textiles that are difficult to sample, such as calico fabrics, or other currently inaccessible objects. Full article

Protecting and preserving cultural heritage (CH) in view of global climate change is the main objective of the KERES project. For managing climate impact with proper measurements, including prevention and responsive actions, an ontology has been devised in the course of this project in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders of selected CH assets that serve us as case studies. In particular, the ontology supports modeling specific CH assets with respect to the challenges of climate change. It turns out the main challenge is to subsume the diversity of models and processes specific to individual assets on a proper level of abstraction. Based on the ontology, we succeeded in creating software that assists stakeholders in managing their CH challenges, including an interactive app for suggesting preventative measurements and a web application for creating route cards that are used by emergency service professionals in the case of rescuing cultural assets. We are confident that our methodology of CH assets abstraction and modeling will be applicable to a broader range of CH assets. Full article

This paper illustrates and discusses a novel method for the digital documentation of human remains in narrow spaces. A 360° borescope prototype made up of a panoramic camera and a lighting LED system was designed and assembled to acquire data in confined spaces for photogrammetric processing. A series of laboratory experiments were planned to assess the method’s validity. A modern concrete tunnel and a mock grave were surveyed using surveying instruments and a laser scanner, comparing the results with the borescope prototype. Then, data acquisition was moved to the field, i.e., in a real case study. Two burial vaults in a church containing human remains were selected and surveyed. The remains were accessible only from small breaches. The results show that using the 360° borescope is suitable for documenting narrow/confined spaces with minimum alteration of the scene. This result can be of interest for archaeological and forensic purposes, especially when the context is hardly accessible, with minimal intervention on the scene. Full article

The use of computers and other digital technologies have had a long history in classical archaeology, but in the last decade, advances in software and especially hardware have begun to transform the way that archaeologists work in the field. This paper explores three examples of this phenomenon from my perspective as co-director, director, or assistant director of three different research projects between 2010 and 2019. These are the Pompeii Quadriporticus Project (2010–2013), the Pompeii Artistic Landscape Project (PALP, 2018–present), and the Tharros Archaeological Research Project (TARP, 2019–present). As a whole, these projects trace one history of digital technology’s impact on the organization of archaeological labor, from intensifying work due to increased efficiency, to increasing the pressure due to newly available data sources, and to reorganizing the in-field procedures that at once takes advantage of efficiencies and frees up labor at the trench edge. Full article

Omiš is characterised by an exceptional layering of its natural environment and historical architecture, which is why its modern achievements have not been fully researched so far. The aim of this scientific paper is a more comprehensive study of the modern architecture of Omiš of the second half of the 20th century. Its architectural corpus has remained in the shadow of modern architectural realisations of the nearby city of Split, which belongs to the same prominent protagonists of modernity. Work methods in this paper have included the analysis of primary and secondary sources and research of the current situation in the field. This work, for the first time, gives a systematic presentation of the modern architecture of this picturesque town while the elements of the author’s expression integrate features of modern architecture and reinterpret the tradition of life in the Mediterranean. Full article

Some previous studies have already highlighted the importance of Quaternary sediments as geoheritage, although the related knowledge remains incomplete and geographically biased. Unique Quaternary features are often overlooked in areas famous for their pre-Quaternary geoheritage. Moreover, the already established high-value linked to pre-Quaternary phenomena require comprehensive descriptions; therefore, it is reasonable to analyze the related Quaternary features (even if these are only locally unique). For the purposes of the present study, three localities that form parts of larger geosites, and which represent Quaternary sediments of Mountainous Adygeya in the Western Caucasus, are characterized. They are assessed qualitatively, with a general description of sediments and attention paid to their origin, potential scientific importance, and accessibility. The Rufabgo Canyon hosts colluvial megaclast sediments. The Dakh–Sakhray Confluence exhibits typical alluvial sediment where detrital clasts are mixed with rather numerous Fe-rich concretions washed out from the parent rocks. The Stonesea Range exhibits mixed eluvial–deluvial sediment formed as a result of the karstification of carbonates and the erosion of overlaying red siliciclastics. All these sediments are of interest to scientists because they can be employed for promising research projects, revealing the peculiarities of the local patterns of Quaternary sedimentation. The localities under consideration are geoheritage points within the larger geosites and are perfectly accessible. Aside from their use by scientists, these localities can potentially be used by geosciences educators to train university students in sedimentology. In two cases, the sediments are also aesthetically important for attracting tourists. Generally, Quaternary sediments should be considered together with the other unique features represented in the geosites of Mountainous Adygeya. Full article

Nowadays, many museums publish virtual versions of the artifacts they keep in their collections in different 3D model viewers available on the Internet. However, despite the wide experience that some of them have in this field, it is still possible to find many virtual models that do not meet the desirable requirements for their publication on the Internet, especially regarding the optimization of the mesh and color textures needed for greater efficiency in the visualization and downloading of 3D objects. In this study, a sample of virtual models of objects belonging to multiple archaeological museums from different countries is analyzed. We considered multiple characteristics of the models, such as the number of polygons that compose them, the quality of the meshes, filter effects applied during post-processing, etc. The results of this research indicate that it is still necessary to make a greater effort to improve the training and digital skills of the professionals in charge of the digitization process in this area of cultural heritage. Full article