In the fields and on the screens. 3D documentation for the excavations at Paphos Agora, Cyprus.
Kasper Jan Hanus, Łukasz Miszk, Wojciech Ostrowski, Weronika Winiarska
Abstract Paphos Agora Project’s fieldwork revolve around (currently) four trenches. The nature of excavations at ancient classical city makes the documentation extremely challenging task due to vast quantity of unearthed portable antiquities, mostly pottery shreds and complicated stratigraphical relations of the architecture. There are some universal requirements for the field documentation: it should be as close to “the reality” as possible, yet the recording process can not be too time consuming. Furthermore, acknowledging the digital revolution in archaeology, the documentation shall be easily transferable to GIS software. Thus, in order to go “beyond” the limitations of drawing documentation we have decided to test the utility of close range photogrammetry while documenting successive stratigraphic lots. This approach was tested during the excavations at the site of Paphos, Western Cyprus. The following pipeline was implemented: archaeological exploration - digital documentation - field interpretation. This workflow proved to be both accurate and time effective. Achieved accuracy of the models made out of close range photogrammetry were accurate enough to be directly imported to GIS software, furthermore the quickness of this method resolved the problem of the “bottleneck” - as usually drawing documentation is quite time consuming. 2D (ortophotoplans) and 2.5D (DEMs) documentation of every excavation lot was uploaded into GIS database, creating the base for further interpretation. As well the interpretation process can be supported by creation of textured 3D models of the trench, that could be prepared for every stage of the excavations. This integrated approach is in our opinion a powerful tool to create a digital representation of the archaeological site for documentation and interpretation purposes.
