Maurizio Forte

Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies

Education

• Ph.D., La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) 1993

Overview

Maurizio Forte, PhD, is William and Sue Gross Professor of Classical Studies Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University. He is also the founder of the DIG@Lab (for a digital knowledge of the past) at Duke. His main research topics are: digital archaeology, Etruscan and Pre-Roman archaeology, classical archaeology and neuro-archaeology. His primary archaeological research questions concern the development, transformation and decline of ancient cities. 
Archaeological fieldwork and excavations: Vulci (Italy), Catalhoyuk (Turkey), Agringento - Valley of the Temples (Italy), Burgaz Project (Turkey).
Virtual Museums: The Trajan's Puzzle (Rome, IT); Regium Lepidi (Reggio Emilia, IT), Vulci 3000 (Italy)

He was professor of World Heritage at the University of California, Merced, (School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts) and Director of the Virtual Heritage Lab. He was Chief of Research at CNR (Italian National Research Council) of “Virtual Heritage: integrated digital technologies for knowledge and communication of cultural heritage through virtual reality systems”, Senior Scientist at CNR’s Institute for Technologies Applied to the Cultural Heritage (ITABC), and Professor of "Virtual Environments for Cultural Heritage" in the “Master of Science in Communication Technology-Enhanced Communication for Cultural Heritage”at the University of Lugano.  He received his bachelor’s degree in Ancient History (archaeology), and a Diploma of specialization in Archaeology, from the University of Bologna, and his PhD in Archaeology from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”.  He has coordinated archaeological fieldwork and research projects in Italy as well as Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, Kazakhstan, Peru, China, Oman, India, Honduras, Turkey, USA and Mexico.  Since 2010 he is director of the 3D-Digging project at Çatalhöyük and since 2014 he is the director of the Vulci 3000 Project.

He is editor and author of several books including “Virtual Archaeology” (1996), Virtual Reality in Archaeology (2000), “From Space to Place” (2006), “La Villa di Livia. Un percorso di ricerca di archeologia virtual” (2008), “Cyberarchaeology (2012),  Regium lepidi 220: Archeologia e nuove tecnologie per la ricostruzione di Reggio Emilia in eta' Romana (2017); Digital Methods and Remote Sensing in Archaeology (co-editor S. Campana, 2017); and he has written more than 200 scientific papers. He got several international awards such as the Best paper award at VSMM 2002, 2010; E-content Award 2005, 2008; Tartessos Prize on Virtual Archaeology (2010).

He is also the field school director of the Vulci 3000 field school in Italy, a program he run through the Institute for Field Research. For details visit the program page. Scholarships are available.

Dig@Lab: Bay 10 Rm A258 Smith Warehouse

Web: http://duke.academia.edu/MaurizioForte

Expertise