Since its launch in October 2019 RomeTrans has combined an extensive programme of fieldwork in Rome with a broad-ranging agenda designed to advance interdisciplinary analysis for the development of complex cityscapes. The agenda brings together beneficiaries at Newcastle University, Università di Firenze, the British School of Rome and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Their work, funded by the European Research Council, has received permission to operate and generous expert support from Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali Roma, the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma Archeologia Belle Arti Paesaggio and the Musei Vaticani. An international project team, encompassing archaeologists, architects, engineers environmental scientists, geographers, geologists, geophysicists, historians, and topographers has been formed to take this work forward. Despite the challenges posed by COVID, members of the RomeTrans team have achieved many of their ambitious goals for data capture. This involved three types of field work (geophysical survey, structural analysis of exposed archaeology, and paleo-environmental sampling) together with a programme of archival analysis. The combined geophysical survey, the largest such survey ever undertaken for archaeological purposes in Rome, brought together leading specialists in geophysical prospection, a form of research often described as ‘seeing beneath the soil’. In this case, the work has been conducted across a wide variety of surfaces, including 3.5 kms of roads in the south-east of the ancient city. Geophysicists from the British School at Rome, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and Geostudi Astier combined their expertise in the use of ground penetrating radar, and electrical resistance tomography, to cover over thirty separate working areas. Work on exposed archaeology, some still prominent above the streets of Rome today, other (often substantial) elements often visible only in historic excavations not normally open to the public, has been undertaken at virtually every known site of archaeological interest within the research area. This research combines detailed examination of the structures by specialists within the team, and, in the particular case of the archaeological area at S. Croce in Gerusalemme, with an existing research team led by Anna De Santis, ensuring comprehensive coverage by a standardized recording system. Integral to this study is a programme of laser scanning (TLS) and Structure from Motion imaging, which has permitted the team to construct 3D digital twins of the sites, greatly facilitating ongoing research. Alongside the TLS work undertaken by project members, Marco Solvi and members of ArcheoTech&Survey LTD University of Siena provided Structure from Motion coverage through the targeted use of light UAVs (Drones). The third strand of field data capture consisted largely of a bore-hole drilling campaign overseen by geomorphologist Carlo Rosa, but also incorporated a reappraisal of borehole data previously assembled in the Metro Linea C engineering works. Archival work, which faced its own very particular challenges given COVID related closures, nonetheless gathered substantial amounts of data about the area in addition to drawing information from Rome's ArcheoSITAR database.
Off-site work has focussed on the essential development of the data management systems that support the programme, including two particularly innovative aspects of RomeTrans, RT SCIEDOC and RT 3D. RT SCIEDOC is designed to make the information that informs the visualisations produced by the project accessible, with a view to provoking further discussion and analysis of RomeTrans findings. RT 3D allows teams to generate digital terrain models of buried ground surfaces at different times in the past.