Archaeological Illustration

Die grafische Darstellung von Befunden und Artefakten nimmt in der archäologischen Praxis eine zentrale Rolle ein. Trotz leichter Abweichungen in den angewandten Standards besteht heute ein allgemeiner Konsens darüber, dass archäologische Objekte nach der Art technischer Zeichnungen, d.h. in verschiedenen orthogonalen Ansichten, Querschnitten und Detailansichten, dargestellt werden sollten. Die Artefakte werden üblicherweise mit Bleistift handgezeichnet und für den Druck in schwarzer Tinte ausgeführt.
Aufgrund der Entwicklungen in der digitalen Bildbearbeitung ist eine solche „Tuschezeichnung“ heute jedoch nicht mehr unbedingt in Tusche gefertigt. Es kommen immer öfter verschiedene digitale Bearbeitungstechniken zur Anwendung, um eingescannten Bleistiftzeichnungen ein getuschtes Aussehen zu verleihen, oder es werden eingescannte oder digital fotografierte Objekte
direkt am Computerbildschirm nachgezeichnet1. Die so entstehenden archäologischen Illustrationen wirken sehr einheitlich, sodass der Eindruck entstehen könnte, dass sich nunmehr ein ideales System etabliert hat. Bei genauerer Betrachtung wird jedoch deutlich, dass Strichzeichnungen den Eigenarten und Möglichkeiten der neuen digitalen Medien in unzureichendem Maße Rechnung tragen. Es ist also höchste Zeit, die zeichnerischen Dokumentationsmethoden in der Archäologie neu und kritisch zu überdenken.

Eduard Toda i Güell no descubrió la tumba de Sennedjem. La documentación disponible en la actualidad no deja ninguna duda. Una lectura del libro que él mismo publicó sobre la actual TT 1 muestra que no pretendió atribuirse el descubrimiento, no al menos en esta obra.
El énfasis en la “proeza” arqueológica de E. Toda informa más de los deseos de las generaciones recientes de egiptólogos españoles que de los del vicecónsul. Es el mito fundacional de una escuela naciente que reinventa su pasado y lo hace entroncando con un pasado de prestigio: una tumba intacta, un Egipto cosmopolita, un Service de Conservation controlado por europeos, y en relación muy cercana con los grandes creadores de la disciplina.
Por el contrario, la publicación de la tumba por E. Toda habría merecido los honores que no ha recibido. Se hizo en un tiempo muy breve tras el descubrimiento, con la colaboración de otros egiptólogos para la traducción de los textos y se atiene a los estándares de la época y, en algunos aspectos, los supera. Fue la primera monografía egiptológica dedicada a una tumba egipcia y, además, recién descubierta; presenta todas sus paredes mediante grabados, y los textos se publicaron en jeroglífico y traducción. No puede dejar de mencionarse la labor de la editorial, el Establecimiento Tipográfico de Fortanet de Madrid, que, sin una tradición previa en España, editó el libro con las líneas de textos jeroglíficos intercaladas entre los párrafos en castellano.

Illustrated magazines and books dedicated to social, cultural and artistic subjects had
great fortune among the Spanish bourgeois elite, over the19th century. These publications
diffused the idea of Spain through images of its landscapes, monuments and cities. The
Galician capital of Santiago di Compostela received particular attention for its urban
landscape, centred around its cathedral. However, as in a true Holy City, the sanctuary of
the citadel is also surrounded by monasteries and convents, constructed by the principle
Christian religious orders. The objective of the current study is to provide a first analysis of
the depictions of these religious buildings, included for the first time in the illustrated
publications of the 19th century as a part of the monumental landscape of Santiago di
Compostela.

In recent years, the creation of computer-based archaeological reconstructions has become increasingly widespread. The attempt to visually “reconstruct” relics of ancient architecture, however, is not a novelty of the digital age. Although little research has been done so far in this direction, taking an historical perspective on reconstructions of archaeological evidence over the centuries offers some reflections on the use and legacy of modern 3D visualizations in archaeology. This contribution discusses a selection of archaeological reconstructions (both drawings and 3D physical models) of Roman and Greek cities in the early and late modern period, focussing especially on the motivations, the aims and the methods that guided such endeavours. By doing so, it will shed light on how much the reconstructed past was in fact the result of a re-elaboration of present needs, thoughts and beliefs. Moreover, it will trace the path towards the formation of a scientific method of archaeological inquiry, which includes the elaboration of ways to assess the reliability of the reconstruction.

2nd edition. Making of 'Ancient Roman House Interior', article about Archaeological 3D reconstruction and digital illustration and visualization with E-on Software Vue Technologies: Modeling, Framing, Archaeological Reconstruction, Use of Lights, Vue and Photoshop Post Production techniques.

In: Current Swedish Archaeology, Vol. 16
The paper presents a reflective overview of the recursive relation between the archaeological practice of picturing Scandinavian rock art in printed works since the mid-19th century, and how archaeologists have constructed its meaning. There seem to be an intimate connection between graphic representations of rock art and an interpretative bias
towards the mimetic qualities of images. When picturing rock art, the identification of motifs is prioritized at the expense of the materiality of rock art. Ultimately, the production of graphic representations
has influenced the antiquarian alteration of the archaeological remains. Today, major Scandinavian rock art sites are frequently painted red, with the purpose of highlighting the engraved imagery for visitor legibility. This practice transforms the materiality of stone into a visual language of graphic representations.

Focusing on artist's impressions of early Anglo-Saxon cremations, we reflect on the potentials and challenges of collaborations between artists and archaeologists to both convey the fiery transformation of the dead in the human past, and provide reflection on our society's own engagement with mortality in which cremation has become a commonplace dimension. We show the potential of art to challenge preconceived notions and understandings of cremation past and present, positioning art as a key dimension of public mortuary archaeology.

Video of the presentation: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6fTFTCxi22mwT4MBA (courtesy of Mikkel H. Thomsen)

This presentation discusses a novel, time-efficient approach for the 3D scanning and interpretation of archaeological ship timbers.

In summary, we 1) use an Artec structured light scanner to produce a textured 3D mesh of the timbers in question, we then 2) annotate and interpret these scans in Rhino, before finally 3) producing an automated 2D timber catalogue of all timbers.

When compared to the current best-practice method for timber recording (FaroArm recording / contact digitising) we find that our "Annotated Scans Method" is much more cost-efficient, while simultaneously producing outputs that are as good and in some regards better than the current best-practice.

DocProtoMidi is an Internet documentary database concerning the protohistoric and ancient archeology of the South of France, and more particularly of Eastern Languedoc. This database, elaborated from his digital archives by Michel Py, Honorary Research Director at CNRS (France), contains medium and high definition photographs, and pixelated or vectorized graphic documents. The thematic sheets also refer to a selection of bibliographical references.

These illustrations are of a microlithic (Kenya Capsian/Eburran) industry from the Central Rift Valley in Kenya and were produced as part of my PhD thesis. The industry relies heavily on backed blades and scrapers, as well as some unusual tool types produce from waste categories.

Portable, composite tool kits have been essential to the prehistoric dispersals of people around the globe. Nowhere is this clearer than during Greenlandic prehistory. Archaeological studies of tool kits have been vital to our understanding of this unique area and period in human history.

The present thesis proceeds from the recent culture-historical definition of the Greenlandic Dorset (ca. 800 – 200 cal. BC), a Paleo-Inuit tradition that branched off into Greenland from the Canadian Early Dorset. This was achieved by the construction of a standardised taxonomy of its tradition for producing lithic components, using the chaîne opératoire methodology. This provided a rigorous means to assign lithic artefacts – the dominant remains from the period – within a coherent chapter of eastern Arctic prehistory. As such, the definition of the Greenlandic Dorset erased the separation between the Independence II and Dorset 1 of northernmost and western Greenland respectively.

However, interpretations on the Arctic lifeways of the period have become equally standardised. With circular logic, the taxonomy itself has based interpretations of social behaviour within the period as highly conservative. To address this issue, the present thesis contributes as follows: 1) Demonstrate that relational thinking is a useful framework for researching how technologies structured Arctic lifeways; 3) Showcasing how a Relational Approach can help us reach relational perspectives on Arctic lifeways through bottom-up lithic study; 3) A comprehensive case-study that offers a novel understanding of how people and tool kits co-created a unique period in Arctic prehistory.

The prehistory of the Netherlands has many new faces, sculpted-- and coloured-- in three dimensions. The authors throw some light on the questions such reconstructions poses. Who is the viewer supposed to identify with in the reconstructed faces of the past?

The books considered in this instalment of NBC raise questions about how we represent the past through words and images. In particular, five of the seven are either explicitly or implicitly biographical, exploring lives from twentieth-century archaeologists back to a governor of Roman Britain. Further, with the exception of the first, all are written and packaged for a readership extending beyond the professional archaeologist and provides the opportunity to consider not only how archaeological narratives are constructed but also how they are communicated.

The paintings, artwork, photographs and models are part of a recent collaboration between local primary schools on Anglesey, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, Bangor University and local artist Julie Williams, to explore the history and significance of the standing stones of Anglesey.  The project was inspired by a collection of photographs taken in the 1930s by the antiquarian Harold Senogles.  It explores how local sites and landscapes can form a core part of curriculum-based learning, including the use of digital information and images.

Mae’r paentiadau, gwaith celf, ffotograffau a’r modelau arddangos yn rhan o gydweithrediad diweddar rhwng ysgolion cynradd Ynys Môn, Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Gwynedd, Prifysgol Bangor a artist lleol, Julie Williams i ymchwilio hanes ac arwyddocâd meini hirion Ynys Môn.  Yn defnyddio casgliad o ffotograffau Harold Senogles, a oedd yn hynafiaethwr yn weithgar yn y 1930au, mae’r prosiect yn ymchwilio sut gall safleoedd a thirweddau lleol ffurfio rhan greiddiol o ddysgu seiliedig ar y cwricwlwm, gan gynnwys defnyddio gwybodaeth a delweddau digidol.

Two capitals placed in the cloister of the cathedral of Santa Maria of Tortosa (Spain) are among the few sculptural remains of the former Romanesque cathedral which was levelled between 1428 and 1703 for the construction of the extant Gothic building. The capitals, each formed by two fragments assembled together, depicting scenes of the Life of Christ, were positioned in the portal accessing the cloister garth in 1848, while the original location of the sculptures within the cathedral complex is still uncertain. Based on iconographic and stylistic comparisons the pieces can be dated to 1270. The artefacts present strong similarities with other pieces scattered around the region (some of which are still unpublished); this corpus of sculptures includes another capital kept in the cathedral museum and also the sculptural decoration of the Porta de l’Epistola of the cathedral of Tarragona. This paper will suggest the presence of an artist or a workshop active in Catalonia around the second half of the 13th century.

Pottery manufacturing in Early Bronze Age (EBA) Anatolia witnessed a host of technical innovations that transformed what had been a small-scale domestic activity into a specialist craft. At the proto-urban village of Seyitömer Höyük, dedicated pottery workshops appeared in the EBIII period (ca. 2250-2200 BCE), along with a suite of technical innovations, such as pottery molds, clay mixing pits, and clusters of pottery kilns. These advances allowed potters to manufacture more vessels with less effort, and represent a fundamental shift in the chaine operatoire, which is indicative of broader social and economic changes in the EBA. This poster presents the archaeological evidence for various stages of standardized pottery production, in comic book style. Sequential illustrations tell the story of an apprentice potter learning her craft under the tutelage of a seasoned corporate group of specialists. These fictional characters perform activities that are empirically attested at Seyitömer Höyük, and offer an approachable way for general audiences to engage with real archaeological data.

A set of six high resolution vectorized archaeological scales (2, 5 and 10cm, 20, 50 and 100mm) executed in Adobe Illustrator. Their potential use is for printing and using as scales in photography session or for insertion to digital images at post-processing. In the provided link below you can download either a high-resolution PNG or the zip file that contains vector files (AI, CDR).

Link to source files: http://harry-paraskeva.deviantart.com/art/Archaeological-Photography-Scales-401599188
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Note: The provided PDF here on Academia is for preview purposes only.

In this paper I explore the concept of the lost river and the implications this term has for our understanding of the history of changing urban environments. In taking a voyage down one of the London 2012 Olympic Park’s now-filled waterways, the Pudding Mill River, charting it and the surrounding area’s diverse history, I explore how rivers end up becoming losable. Drawing on diverse methodologies from archaeology and geography and with a particular emphasis on mapping, I argue that a literal and metaphorical exploration of such a rapidly changing environment reveals a multitude of buried narratives and fluid histories. This research suggests that the labelling of a river as lost is not a politically neutral act and that, with its romantic connotations, the term may actually serve to legitimise insensitive and contentious changes to our environment.

Aim of the presented paper is to share helpful tips and tricks which refers to challenges with digitalization of hand drawn archaeological illustrations. Few of these tips can provide much more simplified and mainly effecient work with transforming illustrations (e.g. sketches of artifacts or plans of archaeological features/objects) to digitalized form and adjusting them for publication purposes which meet the standards of modern documentation.