Digital Documentation of the Doliche Kebertepe Hillside Church (original) (raw)
This case study discusses the Meryemana church in Gi:ireme (Cappadocia, Turkey), a small rupestrian church enriched by mural paintings of the life of Virgin Mary. This small monument represents a valuable heritage which is at risk due to the poor stability of the rock in which it has been excavated. The church is a part of an extended system of refuges and spaces, but the "monastery" in which the church was included has almost disappeared. In 2012 and 2013 a team of researchers from DIDA (Dipartimento di Architettura, Florence University) and DISBEC (Dipartimento di Scienze dei Beni Culturali, Tuscia University) carried out a survey of this church with the purpose of showing the artefact in its current state and finding digital procedures to avoid its permanent loss.
The documentation of ecclesiastical cultural heritage sites in Cyprus
2020
Innovative digital applications are invaluable for the documentation and conservation of cultural heritage monuments. Digital techniques can provide data on cultural heritage sites to enhance understanding of their changes over time. Due to the age and conditions of cultural heritage monuments in Cyprus, especially churches, there is a great demand to develop a methodology that is capable of digitizing both the internal and external church using a variety of non-invasive techniques as a means of storing and managing documentation data and metadata for providing comprehensive culturally digital and documentation evidence. In this paper, the integration of various technologies was used to document the 12th century St. Efstathios Chapel in Kolossi, Cyprus. The methodologies included data acquired by close-range images from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and hand-held cameras, coordinates from ground control points using Total Stations etc., to document both the internal and external f...
– " Karabournaki-Recording the Past " is a project regarding the digital documentation of an archaeological site using as a case study the site of Karabournaki located in the area of Thessaloniki (Greece). Focus of the project is to design, develop, and implement a multimedia cultural database system capturing the full amount of the available information regarding the site, including extended search and visualization capabilities that can deliver its multilingual content over the Internet. The meta-data that are produced with the completion of the project contribute significantly to the study and publication of any archaeological site as well as its preservation, succeeding the final goal of making it universally accessible.
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2022
In 1985, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the site "Painted Churches in the Troodos Region" of the Republic of Cyprus on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The latter included nine Byzantine and Post Byzantine Churches to which a tenth church was added in 2001. In the framework of the IH-AT project, all the churches and the premises in their proximities were analysed using a wide array of non-destructive digital methodologies coupled with more traditional art-historical studies. Image-and Range-based techniques were used to document all the morphological features of the buildings with the final goal of understanding their humble architecture. Additionally, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was performed to investigate the presence of buried structures that, according to historical sources, were once surrounding the religious sites. For the exploitation and visualization of the extensive database by the scientific community and the public at large, a web portal comprised of reliable and efficient technology-ready tools have been developed. The proposed methodology was implemented to provide new insights on the churches' architectural features; confirm the presence or absence of buried remains of archaeological interest; and help heritage professionals, with lack or minimal programming skills, to customize online visualizations of 3D interactive models.
Contemporary Digital Methods for the Geometric Documentation of Churches in Cyprus
International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2009
Recent advances in digital methods incorporating information technology have enabled the traditional surveyor and monument recorder to work faster, more accurately and in an automated way in order to produce advanced digital products, more versatile and more useful to the end users. Such methods include tacheometry, digital photogrammetry, as image-based method, terrestrial laser scanning and the development of specialized software in order to fully exploit the digital data acquisition. Usually, a combination of these methods gives the most efficient cost benefit results, by providing 2D vector and raster products and 3D textured models. In this paper two examples of the implementation of these methods in the geometric documentation of two churches, both significant for the history of Cyprus, are presented. It is concerned with the churches of Virgin Mary (Panayia) Podithou, in Galata and St. George Nikoxylitis in Droushia. The applied methodology, using classical and contemporary t...
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2023
Archaeological site activities are extremely destructive. To understand how civilizations have developed, archaeologists have to remove layers and layers of land to find evidences of their theories. An important task for researchers is to accurately document every single detail of the site before the definitive removal of precious information. Position, orientation and the context where findings are located could represent important data to be stored and compared many months after excavation process. Survey operations during site activities has to be considered extremely important, since they have to immortalize a particular moment of past human activities before its destruction. Despite this, most of the time archaeological records consist of two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional subjects. In recent years, the spreading of techniques to digitally document heritage assets have allowed to tested new approaches also in archaeological fields. Using digital cameras, drones and laser scanners it is possible to collect a multitude of details, such as textures, materials, decay phenomena, and to collect all these data inside 3D models. Digital techniques for documenting archaeological site has been tested during excavation campaigns in Sant'Andrea in Mombasiglio church, in the northern of Italy. The site has been documented along many years and in different excavation progresses, to be able to digitally recreate multiple stages of site evolution. 4D stored information can be used by archaeologist for scientific purpose, as in the museums through VR and AR applications.
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2023
The church of Sv. Nikola, dated to the mid-14th century, is an important medieval cultural heritage monument with vivid fresco iconography located in the village of Kalotina, Bulgaria. The church consists of a small narthex and a larger naos with an apsidal wall. Much of the decorative details are beginning to degrade which makes the need for documentation of the current state important for preservation. Due to its remote location, public access is limited for both visitors and researchers. During the recent campaign, a workflow was designed with the purpose of obtaining complete documentation of the church. The workflow aimed to be low-cost and relatively quick. Complete photographic documentation was conducted including close-range photogrammetry of the interior and exterior of the church, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) of a selection of the graffiti within the frescoes, and 360-degree HDR panoramas. Additionally, a field survey of the surrounding area was performed by archaeologists and a geodetic survey which was used for the georeferencing of the photogrammetric 3D models. This detailed workflow developed for this project serves as a case study of a methodology for complete documentation of immovable cultural heritage.
Digital documentation for archaeology. Case studies on etruscan and roman heritage
SCIRES-IT : SCIentific RESearch and Information Technology, 2015
Innovative tools which are constantly being developed make it possible for the researcher to adopt an integrative approach favorable to everyone involved in the whole process of documentation. Close collaboration of architects and archaeologists made it possible to understand the key elements of archaeological heritage based on considerations extracted from historical analysis and to have at disposal a large quantity of information gathered by taking advantage of the potentialities of technologically advances tools. The significance of constructing digital models in the domain of archaeology is already a well-established idea and only reinforces the theoretical bases of survey and representation. The objective is to present the way in which digital technologies allow us to document, preserve, evaluate and popularize cultural heritage by structuring out an “open” system of cognition and therefore always lending itself to implementation.
Information Technologies for Epigraphy and Cultural Heritage. First EAGLE International Conference (Paris, September 29-30 - October, 1, 2014), Roma 2014, 95-116, 2014
Corpora of inscriptions are fundamental collections of the epigraphic material, and they display in the best manner of their times all that was thought to be important about every single written content. From a modern point of view, the perception of inscriptions is, besides the pure text, very much enlarged by its context, in our sense the archaeological, topographical or architectural context being the position in the specific situation, where the inscription was written and subsequently meant to be read (or simply to be). In the last years, with the ongoing digitalisation of scientific approaches, the collections of epigraphic material could benefit from this development as well, adding specific information about the physical position and the topographical context to the inscriptions. As a case study, in this paper we would like to present the inscriptions of the catacomb of Domitilla, at Rome, and the benefits that one can have by considering not only the texts but also using the topographical context for their interpretation. On the one hand, the catacomb itself was recently documented with a 3D-laserscanner, while on the other hand all inscriptions still in situ were stored in the EDB. Our approach is now to combine the 3D data with the epigraphic data base and to create interactive catacomb plans, in order to better understand the topographical and chronological developments and also to re-contextualise the epigraphic remains in their original placement. Displayed in this way, the inscriptions offer their entire value as epigraphic monuments more clearly.
Archaeological sites are mostly preserved through their field documentation: plans, sketches, photos, descriptions, etc.. Nowadays all this data can be gathered and analyzed in Geographic Information Systems. GIS allows to conduct spatial analysis and its results may give new information about sites. Through the example of three case studies I would like to present how powerful tool for conservation this could be and how broad scope it could have. Altdorf 'Am Friedhof', Germany, a Celtic settlement, was documented only as a paper documentation. With the use of Geographic Information System it was possible to analyse localization of artefacts and get information about new features. The project of documentation of the Gebelein site complex in Upper Egypt is focused on gathering different types of data from several kinds of sources. This jigsaw helps to reconstruct the progress of previous researches and to understand the complexity and history of Gebelein. During excavation in a mausoleum in El Castillo de Huarmey, Peru, “analog” paper documentation was replaced with nearly fully digital one. Only sketches of skeletons were based on ortophotographs. Obtained data was digitized, georeferenced and used for basic, statistical analysis and visual interpretation of the burial context. The presentation shows how a proper process of gathering, manipulating and analysing archival, field and digital data allows to expend our knowledge about the past, reconstruct the forgotten landscape and present results for society in a interesting and understandable way.
2020
Rapid technological development, as well as the great interest in the three-dimensional (3D) digitization of cultural heritage had resulted in the research project “Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage Digitization Pilots for the Churches of Cyprus and Crete.” The main objective is to document churches using a variety of non-invasive techniques to generate 3D models of the church for the management and promotion of cultural heritage sites, such as churches. In this paper, the integration of various technologies was used to document the 17th century Church of Αgios Athanasios and Kyrillos in Agios Athansios in Cyprus. Technologies such as spectroscopy, laser scanning, multispectral and RGB imaging and photogrammetry were used to obtain a high-quality 3D-metric model for documentation. The implemented techniques on the 3D-models assist in qualifying pathologies in the cultural heritage site. Through the use of spectroscopy and multispectral imaging, the authors attempt to qualify the path...
“KARABOURNAKI-RECORDING THE PAST”: THE DIGITIZATION OF AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
2004
Karabournaki-Recording the Past" is a project regarding the digital documentation of an archaeological site using as a case study the site of Karabournaki located in the area of Thessaloniki (Greece). Focus of the project is to design, develop, and implement a multimedia cultural database system capturing the full amount of the available information regarding the site, including extended search and visualization capabilities that can deliver its multilingual content over the Internet. The meta-data that are produced with the completion of the project contribute significantly to the study and publication of any archaeological site as well as its preservation, succeeding the final goal of making it universally accessible.
“The Digital Aposphragisma Project, New Methods and Approaches to the Digitization of Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage of Cyprus and Crete”, 2020
The Digital Aposphragisma of Hagionymous Islands pilot-project was initiated by the Holy Bishopric of Limassol and is now being materialized with the collaboration of the Holy Archbishopric of Crete, the Cyprus Institute (STARC, Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center), the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT, Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics), the Foundation of Research and Technology (FORTH, Center of Cultural Informatics) and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Heraklion in Crete. An interregional collaboration project supported by the INTERREG-VA 2014-2020 Cyprus-Greece. The project involves documenting a wide variety of ecclesiastical cultural artefacts from paintings to liturgical objects and monuments spanning almost 1000 years of history (Byzantine, Medieval, Ottoman and Modern period). Cultural heritage of different size, material and provenance, this pilot project will bring forward a methodological approach into the multi-level documentation of such objects and monuments. In parallel this project is initiating a new challenge, which lies in between two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) image and sensor-based technologies for the documentation and visualization of ecclesiastical culture heritage.
The original Holy Cross Church in Dalby New interpretations through digital archaeology
The Holy Cross Church in Dalby (Sweden) dates back to the 11th century, making it one of the oldest stone churches all across Scandinavia. The appearance of the original church has been discussed by the research community for about a century. The main aim of this study is to determine which of the many hypotheses regarding the first phase of the church is the most likely, what might have been the reason for its major alteration in the 12th century, and how digital methods – particularly 3D – can improve and aid building archaeology. The study consists of four parts. In the first one, excavation trenches close to the church are reconstructed from drawings in 3D-GIS and put in relation to a 3D model of the church derived from a laser scan acquisition of the entire building that was performed in 2013. It is an innovative way to assess and revisit old excavation material by recomposing vertical and horizontal 2D documentation accurately. Based on the results of the first part, other archaeological documentation, measurements from the 3D scan and literature, 3D reconstructions of the three most important hypotheses are created in the second part and are compared to the 3D scan of the church in order to validate them geometrically. An interactive reliability map of the reconstructions was created and made available online. The last two steps comprised the spatial exploration of the reconstructions and an examination of the potential of structural analysis through FEM (Finite Element Modelling) for building archaeology. It was possible to determine which hypothesis is the most likely, and that the alteration of the church in the 12th century might have been due to structural reasons. The study clearly shows that 3D methods can considerably enhance building archaeological investigations, and that FEM is a very promising method.