Theory and Practice of Designing an Archaeological Project – A Case Study in Pompeii, Italy

EEVA-MARIA VIITANEN Theory and PracTice of designing an archaeological ProjecT – a case sTudy in PomPeii, iTaly AbStrAct Current ield research in Pompeii, Italy, is centered on studying entire city blocks, documenting visible structures and excavating below the AD 79 ground level. Such an undertaking requires experts from various ields, such as archaeologists, art historians, cartographers, epigraphers, etc. Planning an integrated documentation system answering also the needs of the various experts requires time and experimentation. The realization of the University of Helsinki Pompeii Project is described and discussed from planning to publication. The system is based on the single context approach to both buildings archaeology and excavation, but various other levels of hierarchies were also required. IntroductIon The Roman city of Pompeii has been excavated and studied since the early 18th century. It is generally claimed to be the most well-known Roman town, but very little systematically collected reliable data is available. Approximately two thirds of Pompeii's ground area has been excavated with varying methods, and, understandably, the ield work SKAS 4/2009 has remained almost invariably poorly documented and equally poorly published. The deterioration of the excavated structures is alarming and in the 1990's, the archaeological agency governing the city, Soprintendenza archaeologica di Pompeii, decided that something needed to be done to preserve and study what could still be salvaged. Thus, an international effort to study the already excavated areas was established and today numerous projects are in progress around the city. The undertaking includes also restoration efforts over entire city blocks. The most common approach is to take one city block and make at least a basic documentation and publication of the visible structures. Work includes often also excavation under the AD 79 levels, and plenty of important new information on Pompeii's earlier development has emerged. The irst publications of the work are beginning to appear (e.g., Coarelli and Pesando 2005; Amoroso 2007; Verzar-Bass and Oriolo 2010) and two large conferences were held in 2002 and in 2007 to present and discuss the new data (Guzzo and Guidobaldi 2005; 2008). The new data has also provoked new questions and consequently new research which will contribute signiicantly to Pompeian as well as to Roman studies in general in the following years. Pompeian studies are experiencing a new lorescence unparalleled since the discovery of the site. 27 Fig. 1. the ancient city of Pompeii. the location of the city block studied by the Finnish project is marked with black, unexcavated areas with grey. (map by author.) The Finnish research effort based at the University of Helsinki was started in 2002 under the leadership of professor emeritus Paavo Castrén.1 The main goal is to study one city block, IX 3 in the modern address system used to indicate locations in Pompeii, in the geographical center of Pompeii (Fig. 1). The work consists of creating a new, accurate ground plan, analyzing visible structures, excavating under the AD 79 ground levels as well as doing archival studies (Castrén 2008; Castrén et al. 2005; 2008; in Finnish also Berg et al. 2005; Aho et al. 2006; Viitanen 2006; 2010). The aim of this article is to present the methods used in the project and relect on their suitability at an archaeological site of this magnitude. The research history of the city block stretches to the 1840's and a short introduction to what has happened at the site before the Finnish project began is presented irst. Then the planning of the documentation system as well as the work process is described and discussed. The last part concentrates on 3D models and their uses in the project's work, particularly in the publication process. From the center oF AttentIon to oblIvIon: reSeArch hIStory 1846–2002 The city block was irst discovered in 1846 when the wide street in front of it was excavated. The western façade and some of the rooms opening to the streets were cleared The irst phase of the Expeditio Pompeiana Universitatis Helsingiensis in 2002–2006 was inanced mainly by the University of Helsinki, Finnish Academy and Finnish Cultural Foundation. The work continues 2009–2012 under the direction of PhD, docent Antero Tammisto with funding from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Emil Aaltonen Foundation. 1 28 SKAS 4/2009 and the most promising ones were selected for more complete excavation in the following year. "Promising" meant either inding interesting wall paintings or obtaining otherwise rich inds and the entrance to the House of Marcus Lucretius (IX 3,5.24; It. Casa di Marco Lucrezio) illed the criteria. The entire northwestern corner was eventually excavated in 1847, including houses 1–2, 3, 4, 5.24, 6 and 25. (Falkener 1860; Fiorelli 1862). The shops in the western façade south of house 6 were excavated in the 1840's and 1850's. The remaining three quarters of the city block was excavated only in the 1870's (Fiorelli 1875, 50–55). The documentation of the period consisted of daily records of work force and main work sites as well some observations on at least the most valuable inds. The excavation was conducted in roughly vertical sections starting from the entrance and not in horizontal layers. This meant that inds from collapsed upper loors were likely to be mixed with those from the ground loor. Sometimes it seems obvious that the excavators did not notice that they were working in different rooms simultaneously. Despite these shortcomings in the work methods and documentation some data can be gleaned particularly on the artifacts found in the city block (Berg 2008a; see also more generally Berry 1997; Allison 2004). Less is known of the walls, loors, other ixtures and decorative elements, such as mosaics and paintings. This data is complemented with amazing accuracy by a 1:100 scale cork model built in 1876 and housed at the National Archaeological Museum at Naples (It. Museo archaeologico nazionale di Napoli). The House of Marcus Lucretius was welldocumented with photographs and minor publications in the decades following its excavation due to the well-preserved and spectacular wall paintings and an unusual garden SKAS 4/2009 with marble statues. Starting from the 1870's new, even more spectacular inds surpassed it and the area was closed to the public and more or less forgotten until the 1970's. At that time, an American classical archaeologist, Eugene Dwyer, conducted a study of Pompeian domestic statuary and included the House of Marcus Lucretius in his cases (Dwyer 1982). This was the only major publication on the city block in the 20th century. new FIeldworK And ItS methodS 2002–PreSent Before the irst ield work season in 2002 some kind of comprehensive documentation system had to be planned to be tried in the ield. Despite the long research history of Pompeii and the extent of the modern work, no common work methods or documentation sheets have been created by the administrators of the site; for example only in 2006 a city-wide system of control points was created to help and unify all the surveying conducted by the various teams (e.g., Heiska 2008). Each project working in the city creates and uses its own documentation method and system. The archaeological work is usually based on the single context approach and this is extended over all the observed structures, walls, loors, ixtures, soil layers in trenches, etc. This is also the approach adopted by the Finnish project with buildings archaeology based on methods developed in Italian medieval archaeology (Parenti 1988a; 1988b). The city block studied has a ground area of approximately 3400 m² and it consists of at least 150 discernible spaces in 18 houses with a large, soil-covered plot in the northeastern corner where the walls are not visible (Fig. 2). Each room has at least four walls and a loor, which adds up to close to 1000 29 Fig. 2. Ground plan of the city block IX 3 with entrance and room numbers, documented areas as well as excavation trenches. (map by maija holappa.) or more entities to be studied, if other ixtures and installations are also included. The Finnish research team consists of archaeologists working on structures, soil layers and artifacts, art historians working on wall paintings, cartographers working on the ground plan as well as doing other kinds of documentation work, as well as a photographer. Different members of the team use the same data in slightly different ways with varying needs for the documentation system. For the art historian and the cartographer, a single 30 context used by the archaeologist is useless as a reference tool as they usually work at the level of a whole wall. The sheer amount and variety of data to be produced also requires a clear and easy way to connect each piece of paper or each image to a correct context. What makes the project somewhat unusual is its huge scale. One of the irst tasks was consequently to devise a way to easily give a unique code for each entity observed in the area. In the previous research, rooms were designated either SKAS 4/2009 with numbers or letters, for example, but using a long code, such as "IX 3,5.24 1" or "IX 3,15 a", for rooms was deemed too laborious. The hierarchical nomenclature created starts with the 25 entrance numbers used to designate the house entities observed in AD 79 (Fig. 3). The rooms of the city block were then numbered consecutively starting from the longest sequence (that is the 35 rooms in the House of Marcus Lucretius) and continuing then through each house following the entrance numbers. A third level was also needed in order to accommodate the needs of the cartographers and the art historians who usually work at that level, usually with entire walls. Surprisingly, this has proven to be perhaps the most dificult part for the archaeologists to comprehend, as they are used to working with single contexts and sometimes have problems with combining the units into larger entities. In addition, the way to name the entities needed at least two attempts before a system easy to use and with least possibility of errors could be created. The irst attempt was to give a consecutive number to each wall, loor and other visible ixture and then add to this list with entities found in clearance of loor levels and excavation. Maintaining the list of numbered features up to date and correct proved to be dificult and time-consuming and consequently a different way needed to be devised. A system using a combination of the room number and a letter designating the type of feature, for example, N for North wall, was adopted and it has so far worked quite well. The single units from walls to soil layers are all numbered consecutively inside each room, usually starting with the visible structures and then proceeding to the excavation trenches. Other numbering systems used are the consecutive numbering of photographs and drawings as well as that of all diagnostic inds. These are, of course, used in connection with the system described previously. In addition to the hierarchy of documentation and nomenclature, a series of documentation sheets catering to various needs was created: one for soil layers, one for various features from interfaces to masonry, and one for combining the single contexts into the next level (Fig. 3). Another set of sheets was created for the requirements of the inds processing when excavation was begun. The entries for each sheet were designed to meet the needs of the particular site and they have been altered relatively little, although some of the entries, for example, for grafiti observed on the wall plasters, have not been used very commonly or at all in the actual work. creAtInG A worK ProceSS Fig. 3. hierarchy of the documentation system. (Image by author.) SKAS 4/2009 Finland is far away from the Mediterranean and classical archaeology is understandably not a very big discipline in the country. 31 Fig. 4. Project members at work in house IX 3,1–2. heini ynnilä is analyzing the heated vats in the front hall of the house. eeva vakkari and maija holappa are surveying. In the background, Gianluca de martino is working on the shop loor. (Photo by ePuh/tiina tuukkanen.) Thus, at the start of the project, only one of the almost twenty team members had had any archaeological ield work experience in Pompeii and only four had previous ield experience in excavating Roman sites in Italy. Training students in various parts of the ield work was a signiicant part of the irst phase of the project. In addition, the small size of particularly the archaeological team required everyone to be able to participate in various parts of the work. This in turn needed good instructions for the work process as well as time in the ield for giving the beginners at least the basic training as well as comments and discussion on the inished documentation. Some kind of common work process was formulated during the irst years. In most rooms only the basic buildings archaeological work is conducted: documentation of the walls as well as cleaning up the loor area and other possible ixtures and documenting them. (Fig. 4.) In some spaces, small excavation trenches were dug. Their size was kept at a minimum, as even a small trench can produce a huge amount of inds to be processed with limited resources. The main aim of the excavation is to provide data on the previous phases of the area, and the locations for the trenches are usually decided based on where buildings archaeology has provided indication of early walls or potential for preserved earlier layers (Fig. 2). A fairly uniform work process has also been proven to be useful in order to make the data from each room internally similar. The work on any room begins by sketching all walls roughly to scale and at the same time trying to recognize the various stratigraphical units. Then the units get a code and the description on the forms can begin. The descriptions are usually started with the North wall and then the work proceeds clockwise around the room, the walls irst and then the loor and other ixtures. The main fabric of the wall is recorded irst and then decorative elements, wall plasters and stucco relief parts. In this way, inding the wanted unit on paper archives or in the data base is usually possible relatively easily. The stratigraphical units found during excavation are treated similarly. Each gets an individual unit number and each is also assigned to a larger entity. The inds from the trenches are cleaned, sorted and numbered during the common ield season, but the analysis and registration of diagnostic inds is undertaken at special seasons dedicated to that part of the work. Each piece is drawn and documented on sheets. The main part of the material is divided between ive full-time members of the project, but some materials have required inding outside specialists to work on them.2(Berg 2008b.) For example, Prof. Michael MacKinnon from the University of Winnipeg and his assistant Evan Love analyzed the bones. 2 32 SKAS 4/2009 The surviving wall paintings, mostly in the House of Marcus Lucretius, are recorded by a team of art historians. The cartographers irst create an image in scale of each wall using photogrammetry by producing ortho-photos of each wall. The details visible in that image are transferred to a drawing which is added to with ield observations. Signiicant details are also copied to transparent plastic straight from the plaster in scale 1:1 and added to the image of the painting. This work also includes verbal descriptions. (Kuivalainen et al. 2005.) The visual documentation is based on photographs in at least two formats, on ilm (slide or black and white) and in digital format. Two-dimensional plans record the locations of the units vertically and horizontally. Cartographers inished the basic ground plan already in 2004 and their work continues with adding new details revealed during each ield season and checking existing data. Sections through various parts of the city block are also being prepared for publication. The House of Marcus Lucretius has also been laser scanned adding a three-dimensional element at least to that part of the city block (Heiska 2008). The data from the ield season is processed further in Helsinki during the winter: the content of the forms is entered into a database and drawings are digitalized as well. In the four and a half months spent in Pompeii, the project has been able to document 53 rooms more or less completely and dig twelve trenches (Fig. 2). The documented area covers ca. one third of the whole city block and the work has so far produced almost 2700 single contexts in almost 400 entities. 3 worKInG on A 3d model Two years after the project started, a possibility to have a 3D model emerged, when EVTEK University of Applied Sciences (today Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences), and its Institute of Art and Design joined the project. The Institute had a research program on visualizing archaeological materials and the Pompeii project itted to that scheme very well. (Kaarto 2008.) Integrating a 3D component into routine documentation was unfortunately not possible, because the students and teachers of the Institute could come to the site only for short periods of time. Thus they did not have the possibility to capture every excavated structure or cleaned loor surface. One of the main questions was consequently how would it be possible to use the 3D model? Eventually it was decided to create a photorealistic model of the visible remains and to use it initially for a guided virtual tour of the House of Marcus Lucretius.3 An interactive visit has also been developed for the purposes of an exhibition which presented the work of the project.4 Both versions of the model feature reconstructions of various parts of the house, wall paintings, artifacts and other additional data. Some of the work is interesting also from a scientiic point of view, such as the possibility to experiment at what the area would look like without modern reconstructed walls. The 3D model is thus used for what seems almost their traditional function: for popularizing archaeological research results. It could also be a useful research tool, but at least in this case, it seems, only if archaeo- The virtual tour can be visited at: http://arkisto.metropolia.i/pompeji/. The exhibition was called "Domus Pompeiana" and it was held at the Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki in spring 2008. See Castrén 2008 and Kaarto et al. 2009. 4 SKAS 4/2009 33 logists could be working on the modeling themselves. Working with a modeler who has no knowledge of archaeology and may never have seen the actual ruins, can be quite dificult. The process by many trials and errors is slow and tiresome, and leads often to unsatisfactory results. Many interesting aspects could be studied with the help of the 3D model and a reconstruction of the house, such as changing light in rooms, viewing the central garden when moving inside the house, etc. no more than four years. Projects also inevitably end at some point in time and the collected data needs to be archived properly. Paper archives can be found easily enough, but digital material offers a new kind of challenge both in inding a suitable location as well as in maintaining the iles – will the formats for text and images used in the early 21st century be opened and read in a 50 years' time? Field work is exciting and fun, but creating a successful and functioning system for creating and maintaining records requires plenty of tedious work in the ofice. FInAl AIm: PublIcAtIon The documentation system has so far worked well and the step-by-step work process has helped the inexperienced students to produce good quality documentation. After the data is collected and analyzed, the inal part is of course publishing it. Part of the data as well as interpretations will be published in a traditional book format. In addition, it is hoped that all the data – databases, images, metadata, measurements, etc. – could be published on the internet. In this work, a 3D model can prove to be a very useful tool. Any who have tried to acquaint themselves to ield data collected by others through a database know how dificult it is. One has a poor idea of what, where and how; inding what is needed is dificult. Using a visual interface, such as a 3D model, to explore the structures and enter the data would make the database easily accessible and understandable. Designing and managing a large scale project is always a demanding task, but having to do it in one of the most well-known ancient monuments in the world adds to the challenge. Another challenge is trying to obtain funding for a long-term project when the "normal" research project is perceived to take 34 Eeva-Maria Viitanen eeva-maria.viitanen@helsinki.i Expeditio Pompeiana Universitatits Helsingiensis Department of World Cultures University of Helsinki bIblIoGrAPhy Aho, S., R. Berg, G. De Martino, K. Juntunen, L. LaihoOliviero, O. Manninen, L. Nissinen, E.-M. Viitanen, and H. 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