scholarly journals 3D DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES TO RECORD EXCAVATION DATA: THE CASE OF THE CATACOMBS OF ST. LUCY (SIRACUSA, SICILY)

Author(s):  
Davide Tanasi ◽  
Ilenia Gradante ◽  
Mariarita Sgarlata

Between 2013 and 2015, Arcadia University in partnership with the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology and the University of Catania undertook new excavation campaigns in the Catacombs of St. Lucy at Siracusa. The research focuses on some very problematic parts of Region C of the complex, including Oratory C, the so-called Pagan Shrine and Crypt VI. These areas document most effectively the long life of this Christian hypogeum, which incorporated previous structures and artefacts related to the Greek period and continued to be used until the Middle Ages. During the excavation an array of 3D digital techniques (3D scanning, 3d Modelling, Image-based 3D modelling) was used for the daily recording of the archaeological units, but also to create high-resolution virtual replicas of certain districts of the catacombs. Furthermore, the same techniques were applied to support the study of certain classes of materials, such as frescoes and marble architectural elements that could otherwise only be studied in the dark environment of the catacombs, making the visual analysis of such complex artifacts difficult and sometimes misleading, not to mention that the frequent use of strong sources of light for study can also endanger them. The virtual archaeology research undertaken at the Catacombs of St. Lucy represents the first systematic application of 3D digital technologies to the study of such a special archaeological context in Sicily.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-82
Author(s):  
Davide Tanasi ◽  
Ilenia Gradante ◽  
Stephan Hassam

During the most recent excavations at the Catacombs of St. Lucy at Siracusa, carried out between 2013 and 2015, an array of 3D technologies were employed to record excavation data and provide new interpretative models for the site. The research focused on some very problematic parts of the Region C of the complex. Thisarea most effectively documents the long life of the Christian hypogeum, which incorporated previous structures and artefacts related to the Greek and Early Roman Imperial periods and continued to beused until the Middle Ages. During the exploration 3D digital techniques were used for the daily recording of the archaeological units, but also to create high-resolution virtual replicas of certain districts of the catacombs. Furthermore, the same techniques were applied to support the study of certain classes of materials, such as frescoes and marble architectural elementsthat couldnot otherwise be studieddue to the dark environment of the catacombs. The virtual archaeology research undertaken at the Catacombs of St. Lucy represents the first systematic application of 3D digital technologies tothe study of such a specialarchaeological context in Sicily, culminating in a work-plan for digital global dissemination.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Marek Krąpiec ◽  
Andrzej Rakowski ◽  
Jacek Pawlyta ◽  
Damian Wiktorowski ◽  
Monika Bolka

ABSTRACT Radiocarbon (14C) analyses are commonly used to determine the absolute age of floating tree-ring chronologies. At best, with the wiggle-matching method, a precision of 10 years could be achieved. For the early Middle Ages, this situation has been markedly improved by the discovery of rapid changes in atmospheric 14C concentrations in tree-rings dated to 774/775 and 993/994 AD. These high-resolution changes can be used to secure other floating tree-ring sequences to within 1-year accuracy. While a number of studies have used the 774 even to secure floating tree-ring sequences, the less abrupt 993 event has not been so well utilized. This study dates a floating pine chronology from Ujście in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) (NW Poland), which covers the 10th century period and is critical for studies on the beginning of the Polish State to the calendar years 859–1085 AD using the changes in single year radiocarbon around 993/4 AD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-701
Author(s):  
Heiko Hausendorf ◽  
Kenan Hochuli ◽  
Johanna Jud ◽  
Alexandra Zoller

Abstract The present paper is concerned with the lecture hall as the natural home of lecturing. We will focus on constructed, designed and equipped space as a material and communicative manifestation of science which fundamentally contributes to the multimodal practice of lecturing. Taking an interactionist point of view, we start off with introducing our concept of architecture-for-interaction which aims at spatial built-in features as a resource for social interaction, namely for situational anchoring among those present. In a second step, we identify key architectural elements of the lecture hall as material sediments of communicative problems connected with the social practice of lecturing. In doing so, we will also give a high-level overview of the historical development of the lecture hall (and its precursors) since the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Turning to current data from lecturing in times of the pandemic, we will then deal with so called „ghost lectures“ behind closed doors. This current development brings out a refiguration process due to which the lecture hall undergoes a change from the classical auditorium with copresent participants to a multi-media hub allowing for tele-present participants.


2010 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D'ANASTASIO ◽  
T. STANISCIA ◽  
M. L. MILIA ◽  
L. MANZOLI ◽  
L. CAPASSO

SUMMARYBrucellosis is a worldwide disease. Although it has been eradicated in some countries, it continues to be an important disease in many farming areas. Previous works have described the evolution and diffusion of brucellosis in antiquity through direct analysis of ancient human remains collected by the University Museum of Chieti, Italy, and by using paleopathological and historical data. The earliest published case was reported in a skeletal individual dated to the Middle Bronze Age. However, our research group has diagnosed vertebral brucellosis in the partial skeleton of the late Pliocene Australopithecus africanus, demonstrating that this infectious disease occasionally affected our direct ancestors 2·3–2·5 million years ago. The frequency of brucellosis increased during the Roman period, when the disease would almost certainly have been endemic in Roman society, and during the Middle Ages. Most paleopathological cases involve adult male skeletal individuals, and lumbar vertebrae and sacroiliac joints are most commonly involved.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Lidia Bielinis ◽  
Cezary Kurkowski ◽  
Monika Maciejewska

In the study we present results of two research projects conducted simultaneously at the Faculty of Social Sciences, UWM in Olsztyn referring to the place digital technologies have in the learning processes in the opinions of Early Education students. The results show that the group of surveyed students might be situated on the borderline of digital natives and digital immigrants’ worlds. The conducted survey demonstrated limited trust to digital sources of knowledge amongst students and discrepancy between their personal experiences with using new technology, on a daily basis, and traditional ways of learning proposed by the University. The analysis of the case study indicated that for preparing future teachers to work with children (digital natives), it is important to organize a learning environment in which both worlds – digital and analogue – are connected.


Author(s):  
Tigran Simyan

В статье проводится семиотически-типологический анализ университетского пространства Ереванского государственного университета (ЕГУ). Данное исследование является продолжением дискурса «Университетское пространство». Культурные артефакты ЕГУ описываются не с точки зрения культурно-исторического подхода, а с использованием семиотического метода. Детально описывается пространственное «начало» университетского экстерьера, выявляются семантические и парадигматические особенности центральной скульптуры, а также интерьерный барельеф библиотеки ЕГУ и средневековые маркеры университетского пространства. Центральное пространство Ереванского государственного университета семиотизировано различными скульптурами, памятниками, барельефами, являющимися знаками социальной и культурной памяти, отсылающей к разным культурным пластам: от Средневековья до советской эпохи. «Начало» университетского пространства маркируется ключевыми фигурами армянской письменности, ставшими культурными константами интерьерного и экстерьерного пространства ЕГУ. В визуализации истории превалируют образы видных деятелей армянской средневековой университетской традиции. Изображённые фигуры Месропа Маштоца и Саака Партева отсылают к прошлому, на прагматическом уровне указывая на древность армянского алфавита и глубокие корни армянской схоластической университетской истории. Кроме средневековых деятелей культуры, в университетском пространстве представлены также видные деятели новой и новейшей армянской литературы (Абовян, Налбандян, Туманян, Чаренц), сыгравшие важную роль в становлении общественной и литературной жизни, приведшие к европеизации армянской литературы, а также к парадигматическим культурным переходам. Анализ эмпирического материла показал, что диапазон исторических артефактов вбирает в себя также и советскую эпоху (соцреализм). Подробный анализ барельефа соцреализма показал, что он является стереотипным артефактом советской эпохи, пропагандистской визуализацией советской тоталитарной идеологии.The article is semiotic-typological analysis of Yerevan State University (YSU) interior space and external grounds. It is a part of Yerevan City discourse, which depicts separate part of Yerevan downtown, and fragments of the interior and exterior space of YSU. Moreover, this article is a continuation of the discourse “University Space”. YSU cultural artifacts are described both by culturalhistorical as well as by a semiotic method. Russian reviews have described the semiotically labeled spaces of the university mainly by a cultural-historical approach. The cultural environment has become the meta-language concept of this approach. The cultural-historical methodology does not imply a semiotic metalanguage and analysis. This reveals psychological and cultural values, different historical eras and signs of identity, etc. The article is a detailed description of the starting point of the university exterior grounds represented by the central sculpture, interior works of art and bas-relief of the YSU Library. The central space of Yerevan State University is semiotized by various sculptures, monuments, and bas-reliefs. These are signs of social and cultural memory, referring to different cultural eras: from the Middle Ages to the Soviet Empire. The principal sculpture of the university garden represents the founder of Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots and other prominent representatives of the Armenian medieval university traditions. The figures depicting Mesrop Mashtots and Sahak Partev refer to the past, pointing to the antiquity of the Armenian alphabet and the deep roots of the Armenian scholastic university tradition. Among medieval cultural figures, we see other renowned poets and writers of New and Contemporary Armenian Literature such as Abovyan, Nalbandyan, Tumanyan, and Charents. They played an important role in the formation of public and literary life, leading to the Europeanization of Armenian literature, as well as to paradigmatic cultural transitions. The analysis of empirical material demonstrated that the range of historical artifacts also incorporates the Soviet era (socialist realism). Detailed study of the basrelief of socialist realism showed that it is a stereotypical artifact of the Soviet era, a visual propaganda of Soviet totalitarian ideology.


Author(s):  
Naomi Katayama ◽  
Shyoko Kondo

A dental questionnaire survey conducted on 34 high school students, 55 university students, 23 Middle-age who participated in the university festival. Participants answered yes or no to ten self-administered questions. Also, participants described the hardness of meals, brushing teeth after meals, and time to spend eating in a questionnaire. As a result, some students even had some guminflammation. Middle –Ages had many people who had experience with swollen gums (52.2%). Of the participants, the Middle Ages were few who applied fluorine (17.4%), and many were students (high school students 64.7%, university students 90.9%). Most people brush their teeth after breakfast or dinner. Participants replied that they usually eat a little hard (52.0%) or soft (38.1%) food. One high school student replied that he usually eats soft food. The time to eat was longer than breakfast and then dinner, but it was less than 30 minutes ever for dinner. Middle-Ages ad an average time to spend eating of fewer than 10 minutes for breakfast, 14 minutes for lunch, and 22 minutes for dinner. Middle ages had shorter meal times in all than students. Form the results of the participants; we wondered if they did not chew food very well because they eat soft food in a short time.


Author(s):  
W. C. Liu ◽  
B. Wu

High-resolution 3D modelling of lunar surface is important for lunar scientific research and exploration missions. Photogrammetry is known for 3D mapping and modelling from a pair of stereo images based on dense image matching. However dense matching may fail in poorly textured areas and in situations when the image pair has large illumination differences. As a result, the actual achievable spatial resolution of the 3D model from photogrammetry is limited by the performance of dense image matching. On the other hand, photoclinometry (i.e., shape from shading) is characterised by its ability to recover pixel-wise surface shapes based on image intensity and imaging conditions such as illumination and viewing directions. More robust shape reconstruction through photoclinometry can be achieved by incorporating images acquired under different illumination conditions (i.e., photometric stereo). Introducing photoclinometry into photogrammetric processing can therefore effectively increase the achievable resolution of the mapping result while maintaining its overall accuracy. This research presents an integrated photogrammetric and photoclinometric approach for pixel-resolution 3D modelling of the lunar surface. First, photoclinometry is interacted with stereo image matching to create robust and spatially well distributed dense conjugate points. Then, based on the 3D point cloud derived from photogrammetric processing of the dense conjugate points, photoclinometry is further introduced to derive the 3D positions of the unmatched points and to refine the final point cloud. The approach is able to produce one 3D point for each image pixel within the overlapping area of the stereo pair so that to obtain pixel-resolution 3D models. Experiments using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera - Narrow Angle Camera (LROC NAC) images show the superior performances of the approach compared with traditional photogrammetric technique. The results and findings from this research contribute to optimal exploitation of image information for high-resolution 3D modelling of the lunar surface, which is of significance for the advancement of lunar and planetary mapping.


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