“Digital Photography and Architectural Modeling as Elements of Conservation,”
in Sophie Bonetti (ed.),
Gli Opifici di Urkesh.
Papers read at the Round Table in Florence, Novembre 1999.
Urkesh/Mozan Studies 4,
Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 27, Malibu: Undena Publications.
Digital technologies and the possibility of creating architectural modelings of structures is, since some decades, a frontier of modern archaeology. The author investigates in this paper [representing chapter 10 in UMS 4; see here for the full volume] the application of these technologies as ‘elements of conservation’: the scope is to develop better strategies of preservation of structures by studying them with the help of digital photography and 3D renderings [cf. also Buccellati, F. 1998].
Paragraph 1 describes the advantages in using digital photography, basically 1) “speed of availability”, 2) “unlimited exposures”, and 3) “immediate organization of photographs” (p. 83). Conversely, also some disadvantages are pointed out: 1) resolution, and 2) colour precision (NB, by M. De Pietri: anyhow, both problems can be easily avoided using good-quality digital cameras and providing for each picture a standard chroma template/scale, like those used in museums’ official photography [see e.g. chroma scale] or also applying photo fixing-colour strategies with professional programs, like Adobe Photoshop CS).
The following paragraph further investigates the possibility of using digital photography as a conservation tool, mostly in two cases: 1) “before the removal of objects from the field in order to conserve them in the laboratory”, and 2) “to control the condition of objects in the laboratory or museums from year to year” (p. 85). Examples of concrete applications at Urkesh are then provided.
Paragraph 2 defines the help coming from the use of CAD (Computer Aided Modeling), allowing to preserve material and form of objects: “;I would like to suggest that conservation has two main goals: first, to preserve the material of an object, emphasizing the preservation of the substance with which an object is formed, and second to preserve the form of an object, emphasizing the preservation of the idea. Computer Aided Modeling of ‘architectural objects’ can be understood as addressing the second goal of conservation: it preserves the form as distinct from the material in which it is otherwise embedded” (p. 86).
The following paragraph stresses the benefits of such a system: 1) “;This tool is at its most useful when it can be employed as a heuristic mechanism, not just as an aesthetic embellishment”, and 2) “the desire to have our sensitivity condition the technique, rather than the other way around. And this, too, benefits immensely from being done in the field. Direct acquaintance with the physical situation gives greater confidence in arriving at a final presentation of the three-dimensional reality” (p. 87).
[The Urkesh Global Record provides many opensource photographs, grouped according to the different excavation areas or structures, all available to the wide public at UGR/Mozan sitewide].