Digital Photography in Archaeology: The Template System

Federico Buccellati – September 1998

Digital Photography in Archaeology: The Template System
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V

Digital Photography in Archaeology: The Template System

I

One of the most important tasks of an archaeologist is the documentation of what he finds. This documentation can be divided into two categories: explanations and photographs. Explanations are the textual material that one writes about the stratigraphic or typological finds, and the drawings and plots that one creates to aid in the explanation. The photographs are presented as the documentation of the physical finds, and as proof that the explanations are correct or at least founded in a physical reality. The distinction lies in the fact that the photos, for better or worse, reflect what was actually found, while the explanatory part is the superposition of an understanding onto that matrix.

Both types of documentation Arepresent@ a find (be it stratigraphic or typological), and relate it from a certain point of view. As there is yet no way of copying and preserving experience in its rawest form, an archaeologist must present to an audience what has been found in as unbiased a form as possible, attempting to transmit the experience and highlighting the most important and most puzzling features. Once this has been done, then he can draw conclusions and explain how what is physical demonstrates a cultural reality. The documentary step is fundamental because this physical framework is not a common experience B one of the Athrills@ of being an archaeologist is that only you expose the material, and in it notice patterns, be they typological or stratigraphic. These patterns are Areal@ in the sense that a line of stones within a vertical dimension is different from a packed surface in a horizontal dimension whether or not anyone ever excavates them, but it is only the human ability of association and generalization that allows us to understand function: in this case as a wall and a floor. But it is these acts of association and generalization that we must document B the interaction of archaeologist with the earth must be communicated as fully as possible, in order that the audience make for themselves the steps that we are the first to take.

By not laying out the patterns first, we make what we have discovered and concluded hollow. What would fiction be with no characters? What would music be with no notes? What would a picture be with only one color? We appreciate fiction and music and art because of the brilliance of the individual and the coherence of the patterns presented.

II

The question, then, is how best to communicate the experience of an archaeologist=s interface with the site. This volume is the first from Mozan to use images taken with a digital camera. The speed, quality and technology that digital images provide allow us to communicate an interaction between the two categories of documentation that we spoke of above. It seems to me that the norm is to present the text and the images as two separate parts. While the text portion refers to the pictures, and in a sense the pictures lead one to ask questions that can be answered in the text, there is really no direct interaction between the text and the picture.

Digital photography allows us to weave text and pictures together in a way that has not been possible in the past. At Mozan, GB has always stressed the need to take polaroid pictures to Aexplain@ what is being taken with regular film. In a sense, our new digital system is merely an improvement on his idea B the Apolaroid@ on which we draw IS the Aregular@ film, that is, the image we wish to publish. What makes this a big improvement over the polaroid system is the speed and quality with which we do it. The photos are publication quality shots, and the photos without the writing are published separately as images. The drawings are not hand done, but computer lines that are clearer and neater than anything done by hand.

III

What is this text that we write on the photos? It defines the patterns that the archaeologist has discovered, and links them to the physical representation that is the photo. There are often lines drawn on the photo as well, delimiting the area of a certain pattern that the archaeologist, and then there are numbers that link the pattern that is visible to the text that explains the archaeologist=s understanding and interpretation. The templates really become a bridge between the representation of the reality and the exposition of the interpretation.

IV

The templates are also useful to the archaeologists who prepare them, because while in the field we apply the patterns to the reality by pointing and talking about the stratigraphy, drawing on the photos makes us delimit exactly the patterns we are attempting to explain. As several archaeologists in a team produce the templates they discuss the particular features, and the interaction among them, and through this discussion come to a better understanding of the physical reality.

V

In terms of the practical employment of the digital system, we use an Olympus D-600L, which can take 1280x1024 pixel photos. Then we download the images into a Pentium II computer, and import the images into Freehand 8, where we lock the images on pages and then draw on top of the pictures. These can then be saved and exported as a new picture, retaining the old one as a Aclean@ reference for the book.