medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Just to add to the previous posts on laser scanning. In fact it is a technique that has now been used in amongst buildings specialists, archaeologists and the like for about seven years. The technology is also becoming more affordable and therefore more accessible. In addition to buildings, one of the most fascinating users for this method of recording is for petroglyphs and epigraphy--carvings that have long since disappeared to the naked eye. The pioneers in this field published an article in British Archaeology on new carvings found on one of the stones at Stonehenge describing the recording and interpretive technique:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba73/feat1.shtml
I know it has since also been used to record the surfaces of early medieval monumental crosses and other medieval 'megaliths', for example in Cornwall although I don't know of its publication to date.
Watch this space also for a similar method of recording surfaces on the micro-scale. I believe there is to be a popular article published about this soon. This will have the advantage of being able to record the surfaces of really tiny objects like coins and other metal objects in never seen before detail. I shall post when there is more news.
Of course, one of the points that those interpreting the data that is generated from laser scanning and similar technqiues (including lidar--3D recording of landscapes from the air) want to keep making, is that the quality of the findings depends not just on the quality of the recording (some laser scanning outfitters have not done good jobs) but also on the capacity of the software processing that data to produce accurate objects, whether wire frames or surface maps. So do be critical of what you are presented with. I am sure that many a medieval conference in the future will regularly have papers dedicated to this kind of recording and appropriate questions should be asked.
All the best,
Tehmina
---
Dr Tehmina Goskar
Visiting Fellow
School of Humanities
University of Southampton
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|