Nicola Masini

Nicola Masini (born 1965) is an Italian scientist with CNR, noted for his work on exploring traces of Andean civilizations in Peru and Bolivia using spatial technologies and Remote Sensing.

Biography Masini graduated in Engineering in 1990. He became Researcher with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in 1995, Senior scientist at CNR-IBAM in 2003, Research Director of CNR-Institute of heritage Science in 2020, Professor of Fundamentals of Restoration at the University of Basilicata since 2002, Editor in Chief of Heritage. His dominant scientific interest is the application and the development of new approaches to archaeological research by integrating satellite remote sensing, LiDAR, and geophysical prospecting.

He has directed Italian Conservation heritage and Archaeogeophysics Mission in Peru since 2007. From 2007 to 2015, he has been directing several scientific investigations at the Nasca ceremonial center of Cahuachi, Pachacamac, Tiwanaku, Machu Picchu, Chankillo, Kuelap, and a number of archaeological sites in the Nasca Province and Lambayeque region.

Achievements of the ITACA Mission include the discovery of a settlement on the riverbed of the Nasca (2008), a number of findings in some of the Cahuachi temples (2008–10), the monitoring of archaeological looting in South and North Peru (2011), and study of the ancient channeling in Pachacamac (2012–14). Nicola Masini, investigating some geoglyphs in Pampa de Atarco near the Ceremonial center of Cahuachi contributed to providing a new hypothesis on the Nasca lines. The research conducted between 2013 and 2015, using remote sensing, along with Giuseppe Orefici and Rosa Lasaponara, put in evidence a spatial, functional, and religious relationship between these geoglyphs and the temples of Cahuachi.

Since 2013, he has been chief advisor of a research project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Henan (China) focusing on the use of digital space technologies for archaeological investigations and the management of cultural resources. He is currently conducting investigations using satellite imagery, including SAR, to identify unknown sites and routes along the old Silk Road. Since 2005, in Southern Italy, he has been conducting some remote sensing-based investigations on medieval settlements abandoned in the Late Middle Ages. In 2018, using LiDAR, he was able to discover a fortified settlement under the canopy in the north of Basilicata. Finally, between 2017 and 2019, investigations carried out at Machu Picchu allowed the reconstruction of the landscape before the construction of the Inca monumental complex.

Current research His scientific interest centers on the application and development of methodologies for the conservation of cultural heritage and archaeological research. His interdisciplinary approach draws on spatial technologies, non-invasive diagnostics, and geophysics in a holistic vision that brings together history, archaeology, and conservation

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