Abstract
The study and analysis of archaeological elements often swings from large sites to small objects. This variability in dimensions and typology actually determines an equal variability of problems encountered during the surveying and representation process so that it is hard to retrieve a reliable common theoretical and operational background able to guide the researcher through the various steps. The problems connected with the interpretation of data (and their lack of clarity) disturb in fact considerably the final goal of surveying: achieve the most profound knowledge of the object analyzed. Taking into consideration numerous survey campaigns carried out for years, this chapter seeks to present a modus operandi that seems to be indispensable for standardizing and regulating procedures of data collecting, elaborating and representing applied by our research team from the Department of History, Drawing and Restoration of Architecture (Sapienza—University of Rome), the aim being to make the final result scientific, i.e. more objective and correct. Together with a general methodological framing, we shall describe a number of research projects spanning from large sites (Petra), single buildings/architectural structures (The Temple of Divus Claudio, Rome) and small objects (Tombs and artifacts in Crustumerium – Rome).
Even if present study has been developed together by all authors, different authorships can be recognized within the chapter. In particular Sects. 2 and 3 have been written by Carlo Bianchini, Sect. 4 by Alonso Ippolito, Sect. 5 by Luca. J. Senatore and finally Sect. 6 by Francesco Borgogni. All other parts have instead been written in common.
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Notes
- 1.
Whenever human beings have had to deal with complex phenomena during their evolutive journey, they always tried to develop learning strategies that would allow them to overcome the limits of their own senses. Descartes well explained how this approach involves two different kind of knowledge: common sense (that we acquire through experience) and profound which instead can be attained only through study methods and techniques that can reveal to the mind what our senses cannot.
- 2.
With this principle, Popper sought to resolve the impasse that arose between Russell’s fruitless attempts to construct “complete” logical deductive systems, and the cataclysm that swept through epistemological thinking following Kurt Gödel’s proof of the Incompleteness Theorem. Popper, well aware of the inherent inadequacy of the tools that human beings have for cognizing reality and that, in the final analysis, it is substantially impossible to provide “positive” proof that any given statement is true, shifts the centre of gravity of knowledge from proving that something is true to showing that it is false: for Popper, a theory is scientific only if it is possible to devise experiments that demonstrate its inadequacy, i.e., that refute it as false. This approach has revealed as highly profitable in terms of advancing knowledge: if a theory withstands an attempt to falsify it, it will be stronger, more general and thus closer to the truth; if, conversely, the attempt succeeds, an aspect will be revealed that the theory was unable to explain, and a new and stimulating line of research will thus be opened up.
- 3.
In this framework we would like to cite 500 Initiative promoted by CyArk (www.cyark.org).
- 4.
From an epistemological standpoint, we can say that the model is the product of the selection operation that a subject carries out on an object (real or imaginary) in order to extract some of the infinite information available from the object. It can thus be the product of a discretization, or in other words, of reading and recording certain parameters (which may be metric, angular, color parameters or other types) by an operator or an instrument which actively explores the object to identify singular points (this is the approach employed in direct and indirect surveying, as well as the procedure used by three-dimensional scanner), or, conversely, the model can be the result of the passive and uniform recording of information from the object (the photogrammetric approach).
- 5.
For the sake of full understanding, we can consider for its similarities the development of the architectural model in its historical sense, conceptually defined as the stage between the design idea and its construction. Today, the digital model comes from digital techniques, which have now spread to all instruments of representation and have finally reached full relevance at the same time of surveying.
- 6.
Ancient Theatres Enhancement for New Actualities funded by the EU in the Euromed Heritage IV Programme.
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Bianchini, C., Borgogni, F., Ippolito, A., Senatore, L.J. (2014). The Surveying and Representation Process Applied to Archaeology: A Quest for Invariants in a Highly Variable Context. In: Di Giamberardino, P., Iacoviello, D., Natal Jorge, R., Tavares, J. (eds) Computational Modeling of Objects Presented in Images. Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04039-4_1
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