Abstract
This chapter summarises AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme-funded research to develop a digital resource to disseminate knowledge of the identification of osseous and keratinous animal hard tissues. The choice of materials in the manufacture of individual artefacts or classes of objects can make a major contribution to understanding their cultural significance and questions of provenance or authenticity. This resource builds on understanding gained through a Fellowship to O’Connor in developing, evaluating and validating identification criteria for these materials in raw, worked and decayed states. The resource concentrates on the non-destructive visual methods of particular relevance to the examination of artworks, historic and archaeological artefacts. The chapter highlights the potential of various visualisation methods and digital technologies to capture and combine 2D images and 3D models and guide the viewer through the multi-scalar visual cues of each material to a reliable identification. By accessing a range of collections, the project has produced a comprehensive and accessible resource, disseminating these findings more widely than could be achieved by a physical reference collection. This resource supports the identification of cultural heritage objects for conservation scientists and heritage professionals and informs the fight against the illegal hunting and trafficking of rare and endangered species.
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Acknowledgements
VAHT was funded through an AHRC-EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme Research Development Award (AH/K006169/1) that developed directly from Sonia O'Connor's AHRC/EPSRC Science & Heritage Programme Fellowship (AH/H032150/1)—Cultural Materials Worked in Skeletal Hard Tissues (COWISHT). The project was a collaboration between Visualising Heritage, within the School of Archaeological & Forensic Sciences and the Centre for Visual Computing in the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Bradford. The project PI was Andrew Wilson, with Co Is: Sonia O’Connor, Rob Janaway and Hassan Ugail. The COWISHT project and its partner institutions provided many of the 2D images for VAHT and the shortlist of objects for further imaging, which were loaned by the Leeds Museums, Hull Maritime Museum and York Archaeological Trust. We thank Ruth Clarke, Consultant Radiographer and her team for the CT scanning undertaken at Pinderfields Hospital, Mid-Yorks NHS Trust and David Farrar and Kerry Butcher (Smith and Nephew) for the micro-CT imaging.
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O’Connor, S. et al. (2022). Visualising Animal Hard Tissues. In: Ch'ng, E., Chapman, H., Gaffney, V., Wilson, A.S. (eds) Visual Heritage: Digital Approaches in Heritage Science. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77028-0_10
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