CAA2016

Enhancing archaeological interpretation with volume calculations. An integrated method of 3d recording and modeling.

Giulio Poggi, Mirko Buono

Abstract
Digital surveying technologies have nowadays found extensive application in Archaeology, enhancing the quantity and quality of data collected in the documentation of the archaeological assets. Besides the great communicative qualities, 3D data stores precisely the geometric information of a scene, enabling area and volume calculations.

In this paper we present two case studies in which area and volume calculations (on data from 3D survey and on 3D data processed and modeled through the tools and the principles of Virtual Archaeology) have achieved consistent results for the research and the archaeological interpretation. Moreover, the 3D modeling process creates virtual reconstructions that are essential to verify the likelihood of some hypotheses and represents a powerful means of communication for disclosure.

In the first case we studied a rocky outcrop by the medieval archaeological site of Canonica di San Niccolò (Montieri, Italy) where the particular shape of the context was, at first, interpreted as a mine entrance. The integration between different data coming from the 3D documentation of the outcrop, the excavation and the geological analysis has allowed the 3D reconstruction of the original shape of the outcrop, which must have looked like a wide rock shelter, today collapsed. This new interpretation was enhanced and confirmed by area and volume calculations, which have enabled the accurate quantification of the amount of space available for a living floor in the rock shelter.

In the second case the method was applied in order to study the relations between the collapsed parts of a productive building and the destruction layers in the deposit of an archaeological excavation. Without any archaeological comparison for this type of building, the volume of the layers was used to estimate the volume of the collapsed parts and to reconstruct in 3D the original height of the walls and their complete shape.