Abstract
This paper examines the creation and use of 3D prints as an archaeological methodology of preservation, interpretation and public presentation. In their local Lombard dialect, the 150,000 rock engravings of Valcamonica (BS), are known as Pitoti or ‘little puppets’. 3D printing methods have been used to transform digital scans of the engraved southern Alpine rock art into 3D puppets [1]. This methodology can be understood as solidifying air. The printed plastic resin replaces the air in the void created by the Copper, Bronze and Iron Age artists’ stone hammer blow’s. A practice based transmedia research stratergy used 3D printing combined with dance and shadow work to examine the potential meanings of a particularly enigmatic Hermaphrodite rock art figure, coming up with diverse interpretations.
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References
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Virtual Reality Lab, Professor Jens Geelhaar, Professor Bernd Fröhlich and Dr Alex Kulik and particularly Professor Ben Sassen and all his students who helped in this experiment at the Bauhaus University, Weimar. Our special thanks to the Prehistoric Picture Project co-director Christopher Chippindale who also curated the exhibition “Pitoti – Digital Rock-Art from Ancient Europe”. We are especially grateful to Albert Marretta (Archeocammuni) for his expert assistance both in and outside the field. We are also thankful to Paolo Medici and Tiziana Cittadini at the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorico (CCSP) in Capo di Ponte for their support for the field research as well as the Rock Art Natural Reserve of Ceto, Cimbergo and Paspardo, and the Ministero per I Beni e le Attivita Culturali, Soprindenza per I Beni Archeologici della Lombardia. The exhibition research was funded under the EU Education and Culture DG Culture Programme 2011.
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Karnapke, M., Baker, F. (2018). Digital Heritage and 3D Printing: Trans-media Analysis and the Display of Prehistoric Rock Art from Valcamonica. In: Ioannides, M. (eds) Digital Cultural Heritage. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10605. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75826-8_19
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