Reliefs, inscriptions and architectural elements made of marble are an important part of our cultural heritage from Roman times (in Austria ca. 1st-4th century AD). The stones were mostly parts of larger buildings that disintegrated or were demolished over time.

Many of the stones in Austria are made of local East Alpine marble; others are made of sand-, limestone or other rocks. Most are parts of grave buildings (e.g. Relief with servant and dog) or other grave markers such as grave steles (e.g. portrait stele of Sextus Sacretius Priscus), grave altars (e.g. grave altar of Caius Attius Iustus), grave portraits (e.g. grave relief of Claudius Restutus) or simple gravestones (e.g. Epitaph of Quintus Sepueius Adiectus). Votive altars (e.g. altar for Sol) from sanctuaries are rarer and there are hardly any stones from secular use, such as milestones (e.g. milestone of emperor Caracalla).

Only a part of the stones can be found in museums; many are used as decoration or simple building material in churches and castles, but also on farms or in private houses. They are often subject to slow but steady and, above all, irreversible decay, particularly due to vegetation and the effects of the weather.

The project ‘Eternity in stone? Roman stones in wind and weather' by the Ubi Erat Lupa association, which operates the international database of the same name on ancient stone monuments, has been working on the 3D documentation of all Roman stones in Styria that are not kept in museums.

High-quality three-dimensional models of the almost 400 stones were created using Structure-from-Motion, an image-based 3D recording process, in order to document the current condition of the objects in the best possible way. The models are largely available under the CC-BY-NC 4.0 licence and can be accessed via the database. The condition analysis also carried out as part of the project serves as a basis for the conservation treatment of the most endangered stones.

Compared to the existing photo documentation, the 3D documentation offers the advantage that the stones can be viewed orthogonally and scaled with the same incidence of light, in order to better recognise and verify similarities and matching pieces. The data also facilitates the reconstruction of burial structures through its exact dimensions and, if visible during the documentation process, also shows the often neglected sides and backs of the stones. The project thus opens up new perspectives in the research and preservation of our ancient cultural heritage.