This article modifies an old archaeological adage-''excavation is destruction''-to demonstrate how advances in archaeological practice suggest a new iteration: ''excavation is digitization.'' Digitization, in a fully digital paradigm, refers to practices that leverage advances in onsite, image-based modeling and volumetric recording, integrated databases, and data sharing. Such practices were implemented in 2014 during the inaugural season of the Kaymakç ı Archaeological Project (KAP) in western Turkey. The KAP recording system, developed from inception before excavation as a digital workflow, increases accuracy and efficiency as well as simplicity and consistency. The system also encourages both practical and conceptual advances in archaeological practice. These involve benefits associated with thinking volumetrically, rather than in two dimensions, and a connectivity that allows for group decision-making regardless of group location. Additionally, it is hoped that the system's use of almost entirely ''off-the-shelf'' solutions will encourage its adoption or at least its imitation by other projects.
As archaeologists continue to adopt geographic information systems and computer-aided design software packages to record and store spatial data, excavations have begun to forgo hand-drawn plans in favor of digital recording. The purpose of this article is to present two case studies that have successfully utilized digital drafting techniques to create architectural plans at multiple scales. The first presents on-site 2D and 3D documentation at the site of Tel Akko, Israel, at the square, field, and tell scales. The second study combines orthophotos and legacy data to create an accurate site plan of Qasrin on the Golan Heights. Both harness image-based modeling to produce 2D and 3D spatial data in order to produce top plans with unprecedented spatial accuracy.
It has long been recognized that perceptions of individual posthumous memory and the commemorative devices harnessed to maintain it differ greatly through time. In pre-Christian Rome, the belief that an individual enjoyed an afterlife through the perpetuation of their memory before and after death was central to Roman social identity and encompassed not only the act of reproducing or recalling anindividual or an event, but reflected an individual’s character and virtues. Recent studies demonstrate that the material correlates of commemorative behavior pervaded the Roman visual landscape. Although the majority of evidence bespeaking commemoration represents the elite, the importance of memory was widely recognized. It would, therefore, be difficult to assume that only the upper classes engaged in such rituals. Roman soldiers, as individuals in a profession that took them far from their native land, also practicedsuch behavior. Without the means to engage in traditional commemorative practices, Roman legionaries devised unique methods to fulfill their commemorative needs. This investigation argues that the personalization of infantry helmets did more than denote personal property. It also became a tool created by soldiers to safeguard their memory. As objects that pervaded the visual landscape of the military realm, legionary helmets became an ideal medium for commemorative behavior.
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