Champaner‐Pavagadh Archaeological Park: A Design Approach

Champaner‐Pavagadh, like many other heritage sites in India, is both an historic and ethnographic landscape. It possesses a unique status as a medieval city—Champaner—frozen in time, more or less protected by its sudden abandonment 450 years ago. At the same time, it is a living sacred site—Pavagadh Hill—visited annually by millions, with a resident population. Efforts are underway to declare the hill and the remains of the medieval city at its foot an archaeological park, which will ensure protection and conservation of cultural and natural resources. The challenge in designing the site as an archaeological park lies in articulating the pastoral image conjured up by the term in a manner that does not belie complex issues of land ownership, varied use, and ecological integrity of the site. Working landscapes—farms, flower fields, orchards, and nurseries—can be employed as a landscape‐design typology to ensure sustainability and to preserve and frame sightlines to monuments. Garden archaeology is necessary to uncover the symbiotic relationship between buildings and gardens of medieval Champaner.     

Integrating Archaeological Heritage into Towns and Settlements

ABSTRACT

This article explores factors concerning the urban integration of archaeological heritage in towns and settlements. Archaeological heritage refers to visible, immovable archaeological remains (such as the remains of buildings or structures), sites, and areas (larger complexes). As part of the multidisciplinary process of archaeological heritage management, based on understanding the significance of a site and the goal of enhancing and preserving archaeological heritage in situ, urban integration and its determining factors have not been the subject of systematic research. The present study is derived from the application of deductive research based on theoretical assumptions validated by a qualitative survey. Research has identified 17 factors as the basis for the urban integration of archaeological heritage in towns and settlements. These factors represent a theoretical and practical contribution not only to urban planning but also to archaeological heritage management.     

Visible Archaeological Remains in Towns and Parks

This paper relates a specific and professional understanding of the nature of archaeological sites to management needs and approaches. It focuses on how the nature of the resource itself relates to a system of valuation, conservation and preservation. The perspective taken is that of the contribution of landscape planning to the development of tourism and heritage management. One of the central aims is to explain the visual values of archaeological remains in the landscape, relating them to the different measures of preservation available for archaeological sites. Examples are included from Latvia and other European countries.     

The Use of Menthol as Temporary Consolidant in the Excavation of Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army

Temporary consolidation is widely used to protect delicate artefacts or other fragile relics in art conservation. Although cyclododecane is extensively accepted, the safety‐related issues have become an increasing concern and its short working time is always annoying. Inspired by its low melting point, polar structure, well‐established safety profile, easy local availability and low cost, we propose menthol as a new temporary consolidant on the new excavation site of Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army. In this paper, we offer a preliminarily exploration of the kinetics of menthol sublimation on two different matrices, its residue after volatilization, its penetrability and distribution in simulated terracotta samples, as well as other important properties in the laboratory. The results obtained from these tests reveal that the sublimation of menthol can be a zero‐ or a first‐order process, depending on the porosity of the matrices, and its best operational temperature resides in the range of 60–80°C. Finally, two field cases at the archaeological site of Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army are presented to show that menthol is a very effective temporary consolidant.     

基于Amos的环境地方性与游客地方感之间的关系机理分析——以西安大明宫国家考古遗址公园为例

本文以西安大明宫国家考古遗址公园为例,基于空间形态要素、公园景观要素、服务配套要素、地方性、地方感5个潜在变量,构建地方性与地方感之间的因果关系结构方程模型.通过预设观测变量因子设计量表,发放200份调查问卷,回收181份有效问卷,再运用SPSS建立有效分析数据库,并基于Amos7.0平台进行结构方程模型的验证性分析,从而探讨大明宫国家考古遗址公园空间环境营造的地方性特征与游客地方感之间的关系路径及运行机理.     

‘Order’-ing Excavations: Constitution of Archaeology as Legal Evidence in the Ayodhya Case

This paper examines the case of the court-ordered excavations at Ayodhya to understand the process by which archaeological evidence as expert opinion was reconfigured into judicial evidence in a civil lawsuit. Being an exceptional site of enquiry where two institutions of the Indian state — the High Court of Allahabad and the Archaeological Survey of India — come together, the Ayodhya case allows us to complicate the uses and abuses of archaeology. An examination of the orders and documents related to the excavations and the judgment made by the Allahabad High Court shows the production of archaeological knowledge at Ayodhya as highly mediated. The paper argues that this process is determined by the notions shared by both the institutions about archaeology-as-science and about scientific/archaeological expertise, regulated at each stage through judicial interventions and informed by the role that the Archaeological Survey of India and the archaeology profession has played in the production of a nationalist past in India. The employment of archaeology as legal evidence in the Ayodhya case is contingent upon the masking of these mediating roles.     

The Integration of VHR Satellite Imagery,GPR Survey and Boring for Archaeological Prospection at the Longcheng Site in Anhui Province,China

This paper is focused on the joint use of non‐invasive and minimal intervention techniques for supporting archaeological prospection. Very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery analysis and ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) and boring surveys were integrated for the study of the Longcheng site, located near Hefei city in Anhui Province, China, to test their effectiveness and efficiency in prospecting archaeological remains and evaluating their degree of preservation. First, target locations of potential archaeological structures were identified on a WorldView‐2 (WV‐2) satellite image through spatial and radiometric enhancement, interpretation and object‐oriented classification. Second, archaeological features extracted from the WV‐2 imagery were further investigated by a GPR survey that provided detailed cross‐checking information about buried remains. Finally, a subsequent boring survey was conducted across those prospective archaeological structures in order to map the stratigraphic sequences on the basis of colour, compactness and the inclusions contained in the soil, and then to test their correspondence with the GPR data. The boring led to detailed confirmation of the results produced by the remote sensing analyses and GPR surveys, as well as the discovery of datable artefacts. On the basis of all the integrated data, the preliminary layout and structure of the Longcheng site was reconstructed in GIS. Furthermore, the widths, lengths, heights and burial depths of these buried archaeological structures were estimated in detail.     

Marine electrical resistivity tomography for shipwreck detection in very shallow water: a case study from Agropoli (Salerno,southern Italy)

A marine electric resistivity survey was carried out over a submerged beach along the Agropoli shore (Salerno, Italy) to detect buried objects of archaeological interest below the sandy seabed. We found a shipwreck, a military vessel that probably sunk during the Salerno landing operations of the allied forces in the Second World War. Resistivity data provide information on the vertical and horizontal extension of the shipwreck, which is characterized by very low calculated resistivity values (about 2–5 ohm m). Such values differ significantly from the sand and the bedrock values (5–40 ohm m). Although the presence of the shipwreck is clearly visible from geoelectric data, the joint application of electric, magnetic and multibeam bathymetric techniques reduces the ambiguities inherent in each method. As shown in the Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and confirmed by the Digital Elevation Model (obtained from the processing of bathymetric data), the shipwreck extends more than 30 m in NE–SW direction and it is about 13 m wide. The global extension of the relic is consistent with the magnetic data, that are characterized by a magnetic anomaly with an amplitude of about 1800 nT and similar dimension, as inferred from the estimation of source boundaries obtained from the computation of the analytic signal. The results of our survey encourage the use of marine geoelectrical methods for the detection of buried archaeological targets, particularly in locations where the use of seismic prospecting is not effective (e.g. very shallow water with sandy sea-bottoms). The integration of different geophysical methods allows to better define the extension, depth and thickness of buried objects, suggesting that such an approach is the most effective for underwater archaeological investigations.     

Genetic analysis of archaeological wood remains: first results and prospects

A total of 51 ancient oak wood samples originating from various European archaeological sites, dating from the Neolithic period to the 18th century, were assayed for the presence of reproducible chloroplast (cp) DNA sequences. Five polymorphic chloroplast fragments were targeted. Only five of the samples could be fully genetically characterised, revealing four different oak cpDNA haplotypes. In all cases, the haplotypes detected on ancient woods and the haplotypes characterised from fresh samples from the same localities matched. Overall, this congruence is consistent with a genetic continuity between ancient and modern European oaks, confirming the hypothesis that the mapped genetic patterns largely reflect the original structure that established during the post-glacial. This stability of the genetic structure implies that, in the future, the technique could be used to infer or confirm the transport of wood by man, providing interesting perspectives for the genetic analysis of ancient woods.     

考古发掘虚拟仿真实验的建设与思考——以体素模型应用为中心

随着信息科学的快速发展,虚拟仿真技术在田野考古以及文化遗产保护工作中已得到广泛的应用并展现出巨大的价值。基于虚拟仿真技术开发的数字化实验,也成为理论与实践之外,高校人才培养的一种创新性教学方式。此前以考古发掘为内容的虚拟仿真工作中往往只能提供某一特定状态下的静态展示,无法全面反映古遗址整体的堆积情况,而据此开发的考古发掘实验中也难以实现对发掘工作过程的模拟。究其原因,三维模型是虚拟仿真工作的核心基础,而传统建模方法一般只能得到模拟建模对象外表面特征的"面模型",却缺失内部数据,因此难以实现对古遗址等内部结构复杂对象的模拟,也难以实现高水平的仿真互动以模拟考古发掘工作过程。体素模型,也称三维栅格模型,是通过三维空间中一系列连续排列的基元矩阵实现对立体对象的表达。这些基元被称为体素,如同海量的像素有序排列可以构成精细的二维图像,当海量的体素如积木般被拼搭起来则可以最大限度还原立体对象的整体特征。近年来,体素模型已开始应用于考古发掘虚拟仿真实验的开发。相关工作充分展示出体素模型技术在考古发掘实验领域的技术优势:首先,体素模型可以实现对空间实体由表及里的整体模拟,所以在表达如古遗址等非均质对象复杂的内部结构关系时,在仿真度方面具有显著优势。其次,通过对体素单元的编辑,可以实现模型分解、重塑等面模型无法支持的互动操作,从而满足模型根据用户的随机操作实时呈现非预设的高自由度变化的效果。应用体素模型技术,以真实田野考古发掘工作数据为基础,郑州大学历史学院开发的"田野考古发掘虚拟仿真实验"通过精细的遗址模型设计与操作设计,实现了对地层堆积情况较为复杂的古代遗址的高准确度模拟以及对于考古发掘工作过程与技术要点的高仿真度模拟。该实验已经应用于考古文博等专业的人才培养,作为传统实验教学模式的补充,可以有效提升教学质量。而该实验通过网络平台向全社会开放,也可成为公众考古宣传的新途径。