Contributions of the digital photogrammetry and 3D modelling of Roman inscriptions to the reading of damaged tituli: An example from the Hispania Tarraconensis (Castiliscar, Saragossa)

Abstract

Over the past few years, digital photogrammetry has not only been used increasingly more for documenting archaeological remains but also as a means of obtaining 3D data from epigraphic documents, in general, and Roman ones, in particular. These models, in addition to serving to disseminate epigraphic material and to further collaborative work, have opened up possibilities for improving the reading of damaged inscriptions. Thus, this study describes an action protocol, based on image treatment techniques and replicable in other similar cases, deriving from the 3D modelling of a Roman funerary stele from Castiliscar (Saragossa, Spain).

Introduction

The graphic documentation of Roman inscriptions –as a way of guaranteeing their adequate intelligibility for researchers (Eck, 2017, 33)– has always formed a vital, almost obsessive, part of the editiones principes of tituli (Gimeno, 2018). Since the Renaissance manuscript tradition, scholars had constantly resorted to drawing documents to make them more intelligible to the reader. After the attempts to present paginated inscriptions in the fascicles of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, this method was then substituted by photography which, for that matter, was destined to become a highly advanced documentation technique (Manzella, 1987, 23–28). In the second half of the twentieth century, the use of blotting paper became a relatively practical way of documenting inscriptions as precisely as possible, paving the way to reputable publications on Latin epigraphy (Gordon, 1983). Meanwhile, photography-based graphic documentation techniques were making their way into classical epigraphic repertories (Gregori and Mattei, 1999), to such an extent that they now form an indisputable part of the editiones alterae of the CIL, as evinced by the recently published works on the inscriptions from Tarraco (Alföldy, 2012) or on the milestones from the Hispanic provinces (Schmidt and Campedelli, 2015).

In recent years, and although it is being more widely used in dissemination activities than in research per se, recourse to digital photogrammetry –together with the rise of the digital humanities– has meant that the graphic –and three-dimensional– recording of Roman epigraphic material is now a much simpler task as regards both resolution and, above all, the possibilities of interaction that this digital material –always generated in 3D– has opened up (Tweten, 2016). The proliferation of virtual museums (Paoletti et al., 2004, Andreu and Serrano, 2019, in press), together with digital epigraphic repertories, is just one example of how much digital epigraphy –hand in hand with archaeology regarding the introduction, use and implementation of these techniques (Harley et al., 2010, 131; Babeu, 2011, 82)– has progressed over the past few years.

However, besides the potential that the use of 3D modelling has in Latin epigraphy for dissemination, interactivity, training and the promotion of scientific vocations (Roueché, 2017, Ramírez Sánchez et al., 2016), the photogrammetric documentation of Roman inscriptions has opened up many opportunities for reading damaged documents, as some recently performed studies have demonstrated in specific cases and which are indeed establishing a solid body of good practices in the field of digital epigraphy (Boehler and Marbs, 2004, Barmpoutis et al., 2010, Frasson, 2014; Pires et al., 2015; Carrero-Pazos and Espinosa, 2018; Andreu and Serrano, in press). Furthermore, all this is contributing to create a set of experiences that should be shared in order to establish benchmarks that may be applied by members of the scientific community and which may well compensate for the shortcomings of the human eye when examining epigraphic material that has suffered the relentless action of the passage of time (Bodel, 2012, 287). One of these, in the shape of an action protocol, will be described below.