http://blog.archaeology.institute/in-2014-practice-photogrammetry-and-3d-edition-software-applied-in-archaeology/
- Lisa Snyder and Scott Friedman. “Software Interface for Real-Time Exploration and Educational Use of Three-Dimensional Computer Models of Historic Urban Environments.” National Endowment for the Humanities, September 16, 2013.
I apologize – I’m about to totally geek out on you!! In reading Synder and Friedman’s piece on 3D modeling, I was struck by the variety of applications this type of software has in archaeology – and the very best part is that it can be super simple, and therefore easy to apply in the field! This technology is helping to upgrade the excavation process, which still includes a lot of hand written notes and drawings, as well as advancing cultural preservation. There are incredibly exciting applications for this type of software in cases of rescue archaeology, or sites which are being destroyed due to natural processes. At Apollonia Arsuf in Israel for example, they are trying to implement a program using this type of tech to digitally reconstruct the Crusader Castle on site. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the castle (which was located strategically on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean) is now crumbling piece by piece into the sea as the limestone cliff loses its structural integrity. It is important to note however, the incredible amount of research and scholarship that go into these types of reconstruction projects- I myself spent the better part of several months researching extant, contemporary examples of Crusader fortification architecture in the Near East and compiled a database of these forms. This information was to be used to help fill in the gaps, where pieces of the Arsuf castle were so badly damaged or missing that they needed to be fabricated, rather than photographed or scanned.
Another incredibly cool application for this tech is underwater archaeology! Water has very different preservation effects on different materials and artifacts, and it can often be incredibly detrimental and destructive to remove an object from the water it has been sitting in for centuries (probably the most well known example is of wooden shipwrecks, which can be incredibly well preserved in salt or brackish water, but can essentially disintegrate very rapidly when exposed to air). At a field school I attended on the island of Menorca in Spain, they are using underwater cameras to take photos of submerged artifacts (at even just above 5 megapixels). These images are reconstructed in programs like Agisoft, which use photogrammetry to stitch the photos together into a 3D mesh, which can be manipulated, exported to CAD programs like AutoCAD or ArcGIS, etc.! The photo above is an example from Menorca.