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Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Testing this interactive, 3D photography technique on engraved stone plaquettes and cave walls in the Ariège, France

Lecture: Brownbag | November 18 | 12-1 p.m. | Hotel Durant, University Room | Note change in location

Location: 2600 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704

Speaker: Tim Gill, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Sponsor: Archaeological Research Facility

In the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains, deep in what today is rural France, the Ice Age Magdalenian people created a vast array of portable and parietal art. These works include painted and engraved images on cave walls, carved spear throwers, and engraved plaquettes of sandstone or limestone. Some engraved images can be quite difficult to decipher, due to the wear of the last 14,000 years and the fineness of the original work. When studying these images it is necessary to illuminate them from multiple sides because many of the lines appear only when the light hits them from a specific angle. The study of these images requires exceptional patience and an experienced, artistic eye, and creating accurate renderings of them is difficult and time-consuming.

The recently developed technique of “Reflectance Transformation Imaging” (RTI) offers the possibility of obtaining detailed, accurate and interactive 3D photographs of engraved and painted surfaces quickly, using simple equipment, and at relatively low cost. The RTI images can be manipulated on a computer so that the researcher can see them with multiple light angles, accentuated relief, and varying levels of color. This presents many possibilities, not the least of which is potentially seeing aspects of the images that are otherwise invisible or indistinguishable. In September 2009 the speaker traveled to France with Professor Meg Conkey and two members of Cultural Heritage Imaging of San Francisco to test this technique on engraved plaquettes from the cave of Enlène and engraved images on the walls of Marsoulas cave, and will report on their findings.

Event Contact: tim.gill@asmhq.com, 510-642-2212