ИСТИНА

The digital revolution applied to archaeological sciences introduced new concepts such as those of "virtual collections or virtual museums". The rapid development of digital imaging is opening up new perspectives for paleopathology as well. In this field, both research and training require the use of extensive reference databases that can be hardly constituted by original specimens only. Indeed, all the nosological groups cannot be easily represented within a single collection, in which most of the representative specimens can be considered as rare and fragile (therefore not suitable for handling) and scattered in different osteological/anatomical collections in the world, sometimes with a limited access. Moreover, as skeletal specimens coming from archaeological excavations could be re-buried for diverse motivations, therefore they cannot be considered systematically as being permanent part of collections. The goal of this communication is to present an ongoing project of creation of a virtual bone library dedicated to paleopathology. It is based on a 3D digital chain, from CT/μCT acquisition to 3D printing, through image treatment using TIVMI® software program. Among the different nosological groups, we are developing a virtual collection of war paleotraumatology. It is documented by a set of virtualized skeletal remains from Napoleonic soldiers, dead during the retreat from Russian campaign in December 1812, excavated from several mass graves in Kaliningrad (formely Königsberg), Russian Federation, and studied in a framework of a French-Russian Associate Laboratory (LIA K1812 -CNRS-Russian Academy of Sciences / MSU-EPHE). Diverse paleopathological aspects of war trauma and wounds are represented. This virtual collection allows the preservation of these specimens belonging to our cultural heritage and offers new possibilities for research and training on paleotraumatology, that can be easily extended to other domains of paleopathology.