Re-creating a Frankish Town - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Re-creating a Frankish Town	Volume 50 Number 3, May/June 1997
by Nick Kardulias, Timothy E. Gregory, and Mark A. Dann

Computer reconstruction of Agios Vasilios (Mark A. Dann) [LARGER IMAGE]

Using an array of computer-assisted design programs, a team from Ohio State University and Kenyon College began an innovative project, in 1991, to map and re-create Agios Vasilios, a fourteenth-century Frankish town. Once the second largest settlement in the northeastern Pelponnesos, the Agios Vasilios now lays in ruins. Computer reconstruction drew on extant building foundations and preserved Frankish structures for details of upper stories, roofs, and wall textures in the goal of emulating the appearance of the site when it was a thriving community. The team has also analyzed the landscape of the northeastern Peloponnese to determine what factors the Franks considered when establishing new towns, using geographic information systems. They have used these results to predict where Frankish sites may be found in the future.