7th January 2009, 10:27 PM
I had a friend who considered writing his MA dissertation on using 255 colour pixel values in digital photography to objectively measure soil colour. Not sure why he didn't, but think it had something to do with the way that digital images create tone through the use of light and dark pixels. That and the way that deposits are rarely uniform colours.
I also seem to remember colour pencil drawings being done at Sutton Hoo and subsequent jobs by the same people. Sounded great, and looked good too, but took ages and never quite made it into print (or even into any analytical use that anyone has ever told me about). I was never quite sure why a colour photo and a drawn section wouldn't have done the same job just as well and much faster.
One place I worked did at one point use coloured pencils in place of hatches for differnet inclusions (red for brick/tile, yellow for mortar, blue for imported stone and green for chalk). That looked pretty psychedelic on stone for stone plans of robber trenches (but was really useful- the only way you could tell what was a robber trench and waht wasn't was the mortar content), and was really effective for showing differential tip/slippage into the temple ditch. Again, not sure if that ever really caught on. I think it was used for that job because the previous excavtor had trenched the site and never found the robber trenches and they wanted to be sure that they had a good pre-ex record (summer research dig).
I also seem to remember colour pencil drawings being done at Sutton Hoo and subsequent jobs by the same people. Sounded great, and looked good too, but took ages and never quite made it into print (or even into any analytical use that anyone has ever told me about). I was never quite sure why a colour photo and a drawn section wouldn't have done the same job just as well and much faster.
One place I worked did at one point use coloured pencils in place of hatches for differnet inclusions (red for brick/tile, yellow for mortar, blue for imported stone and green for chalk). That looked pretty psychedelic on stone for stone plans of robber trenches (but was really useful- the only way you could tell what was a robber trench and waht wasn't was the mortar content), and was really effective for showing differential tip/slippage into the temple ditch. Again, not sure if that ever really caught on. I think it was used for that job because the previous excavtor had trenched the site and never found the robber trenches and they wanted to be sure that they had a good pre-ex record (summer research dig).