7th January 2009, 05:23 PM
I've often wondered what the salient difference between "pale greyish blue" and "pale blueish grey" is. A matter of opinion... whatever.
I once worked on a site many, many years ago (and excuse me for uttering a dirty work here... industrial archaeology) which produced a context (a fill) that had both dark purple and light, creamy yellow striations. The site director didn't believe me when he looked at my context sheet... particularly the purple bit. So I showed him my hole (ooo errr). On close inspection, and with different light to when I first recorded it, he sorta agreed... yet, he called the purple bit "dark burgundy". I think he was still under the influence of a good claret he'd had the night before.
Just goes to show there can never be true objectivity in archaeology, even for colour definitions.
Maybe it's time we invented a on-site, techno-wizzard colour recorder (based on a digital camera)
I once worked on a site many, many years ago (and excuse me for uttering a dirty work here... industrial archaeology) which produced a context (a fill) that had both dark purple and light, creamy yellow striations. The site director didn't believe me when he looked at my context sheet... particularly the purple bit. So I showed him my hole (ooo errr). On close inspection, and with different light to when I first recorded it, he sorta agreed... yet, he called the purple bit "dark burgundy". I think he was still under the influence of a good claret he'd had the night before.
Just goes to show there can never be true objectivity in archaeology, even for colour definitions.
Maybe it's time we invented a on-site, techno-wizzard colour recorder (based on a digital camera)