Multislice computed tomography (MSCT) and 3D reconstruction of Etruscan funerary urns in archaeology

A multidisciplinary study was carried out with application of medical imaging to archaeology, utilizing for the first time Multislice Computed Tomography (MSCT) to investigate thirty-five cinerary urns of the Villanovian age (9th–7th centuries BC). After a three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of the contents of the urns, we performed segmentation and 3D meshes reconstruction of the objects contained therein (Fig. 1). Our purposes were principally two: to evidence in the urns the metallic objects belonging to funerary equipment and to replicate them in plastic material by means of a rapid prototyping process without opening the urns.