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This contribution presents an integrated methodological pipeline for digital documentation and virtual reconstruction of large-scale urban archaeological excavations, developed through the Amba Aradam case study (Metro C line, Rome). The excavation revealed a 2nd-century A.D. military complex extending over 4770 m² at depths reaching 20 m, documented through multiple photogrammetric campaigns (2016–2018) as structures were progressively excavated and removed. We established an empirically validated texture density standard (1.26 mm²/texel) for photorealistic digital replicas suitable for immersive HMD and desktop exploration, with an explicit texture density calculation formula ensuring reproducibility. The temporal integration workflow merged 3D snapshots acquired across three excavation campaigns while maintaining geometric and chromatic consistency. Semantic documentation, through the extended matrix framework, recorded Virtual Stratigraphic Units linking archaeological evidence, comparative sources, and interpretative reasoning (paradata) for transparent virtual reconstruction. The complete pipeline, implemented through open-source 3DSC 1.4 and EMtools add-ons for Blender and Metashape v0.9 (available on GitHub), addresses specific challenges of documenting complex stratigraphic contexts within active construction environments where in situ preservation is not feasible. The spatial integration of the digital replica with previous archaeological data illuminated the urban evolution of Rome’s military topography during the 2nd–3rd centuries A.D., demonstrating the essential role of advanced digital documentation in contemporary urban archaeology. Full article

This article explores the use of open source 3D tools to improve the transformation of the archaeological record into a virtual reconstruction. The goal of the research was to improve the dissemination of complete reconstructive Extended Matrix (EM) datasets, organized by epochs, to allow a “time travel” experience, by means of the EMviq online service “metaphor”. This article presents an incremental version (ver. 1.3.1) of EMtools (add-on for Blender 3D) and a renewed version of EMviq. These two original open source (GPL3) tools have been developed, on one hand, to facilitate the process of semantic enrichment and source-based 3D modeling of cultural contexts (EMtools) and, on the other hand, to visually inspect data within immersive virtual reality viewers, online (WebXR), or via mobile devices (EMviq). An application case is shown to illustrate the entire work-flow from the archaeological stratigraphic reading to the representation of the virtual reconstruction of what a context must have looked like at a given time in antiquity. Full article