|
The excavations at Pseira, a small island off the northern coast of Crete, have been on-going, under the Direction of Temple University Professor Philip Betancourt and University of Athens Professor Costis Davaras, since 1986. Professor Davaras is also the Ephor for Eastern Crete.
Nineteen small Bronze Age tombs from Pseira have been surveyed and drawn; they will become the first parts of an AutoCAD model of Pseira.
CSA Director Harrison Eiteljorg, II, has been training three members of the Pseira excavation team in the use of AutoCAD so that the model may be made. Temple University graduate student Kathy May and University of Pennsylvania graduate students Lada Onyshkevych and William Hafford have been learning to use AutoCAD, and they are now working to trace the individual tombs from the Pseira cemetery into an AutoCAD model. They are starting with the inked drawings that had been made of individual tombs, tracing each drawing with the aid of a digitizing tablet. Since each tomb drawing locates the tomb in an overall site grid, each can be related to all others in the CAD model.
The design of the layering system in this model will make it possible to display individual stones from tombs, surfaces of the tomb "floors," outlines of the individual tombs, elevations, and so on. Each portion of the model may be displayed alone or with others, and of course, the individual parts and/or specific tombs may be color-coded. In fact, the students have found already that CAD models with good layering systems have distinct advantages over paper drawings. (See Paper Drawings vs. CAD Models)
Individual artifacts will be added to the Pseira model as icons in situ, in the tombs in which they were found, and database information will be connected to the tombs so that the information about finds from each tomb can be displayed on command.
Other CSA Newsletter articles on Pseira:
Continuing Work on Pseira Model (Vol 8.1: May, 1995)
Pseira CAD Work Continues (Vol. 7.4: Feb. 1995)
For other Newsletter articles concerning the applications of CAD modelling in archaeology and architectural history, consult the Subject index.
Next Article: Archaeological Data Archive Project
Table of Contents for the November, 1994 issue of the CSA Newsletter (Vol. 7, no. 3)
Table of Contents for all CSA Newsletter issues on the Web