Fuzzy Borders

The Research Group »Fuzzy Borders« investigates the diverse qualities of borders and boundaries in antiquity as well as corpuses of knowledge which are effective in shaping the spatial design of borders. Its primary focus is on border zones and on the kind of indistinct, fuzzy borderlines which become visible and describable only against the background of concrete forms of delimitation. Our research activities are divided into two project groups, the first concerned with the formation and linear definition of borders, for example in the form of town walls, the second concerned with their dissolution and with border zones. The group is affiliated through Silke Müth and Peter Schneider with the DFG network of younger researchers entitled »Fokus Fortifikation,« which is preoccupied with town walls and fortifications in the eastern Mediterranean region. Incorporated into Research Area B (»Mechanisms of Control and Social Spaces«), the project is designed to provide a foundation for an improved understanding of the organization of social groups and of states through an examination of their external borders. We are also interested, finally, in instances where definitions of external borders are renounced altogether and states are organized from the center toward outer margins, for example, with the ›edge‹ of a given territory remaining undefined. Investigated on the basis of archaeological finds and textual sources are transboundary social relationships, whose significance for the transfer of knowledge currently forms the substance of discussions within our research group

Authenticity and Communication

Authenticity is not an absolute and constant quality inherent in an object or an experience; it is constructed in the process of research. Actors inscribe and attribute it to both material objects and subjective processes like communication and consumption. This article from the research group seeks on the one hand to reflect on the historical scope of action and action patterns among actors from various disciplines between the conflicting priorities of authentication and communication, and on the other to find ways to visualize and operationalize attribution processes through joint reflection. When we look at both history and the discussions fifty years after the Venice Charter, its idea to hand on historic monuments “in the full richness of their authenticity” has turned into an abundance of vibrant action and decision- making

Edmund Buchner und die Weltarchäologie

Reden der Gedenkfeier für Edmund Buchneram 27. August 2012, Wiegandhaus des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts in Berli

Amtswechsel an der Spitze des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts

Festakt am 16. März 2011 im Weltsaal des Auswärtigen Amts in Berli

Digital Roofs. Technischer Workflow der Dokumentation antiker Dachziegel

Im Rahmen des Projektes »Digital Roofs« wurde ein Workflow zur standardisierten Dokumentation antiker Dachziegel entwickelt. Die einzelnen Arbeitsstationen, Technologien und Methoden werden in diesem Artikel knapp beschrieben. Beispiel ist die dreiwöchige Kampagne zur Dokumentation der Dachziegel auf dem Kerameikos Athen.Within the framework of the project »Digital Roofs«, a workflow for the standardised documentation of antique roof tiles was developed. The individual workstations, technologies and methods are briefly described in this article. An example is the three-week campaign to document the roof tiles on the Kerameikos Athens

Intrinsic shape analysis in archaeology: A case study on ancient sundials

This paper explores a novel mathematical approach to extract archaeological insights from ensembles of similar artifact shapes. We show that by considering all the shape information in a find collection, it is possible to identify shape patterns that would be difficult to discern by considering the artifacts individually or by classifying shapes into predefined archaeological types and analyzing the associated distinguishing characteristics. Recently, series of high-resolution digital representations of artifacts have become available, and we explore their potential on a set of 3D models of ancient Greek and Roman sundials, with the aim of providing alternatives to the traditional archaeological method of ``trend extraction by ordination'' (typology). In the proposed approach, each 3D shape is represented as a point in a shape space -- a high-dimensional, curved, non-Euclidean space. By performing regression in shape space, we find that for Roman sundials, the bend of the sundials' shadow-receiving surface changes with the location's latitude. This suggests that, apart from the inscribed hour lines, also a sundial's shape was adjusted to the place of installation. As an example of more advanced inference, we use the identified trend to infer the latitude at which a sundial, whose installation location is unknown, was placed. We also derive a novel method for differentiated morphological trend assertion, building upon and extending the theory of geometric statistics and shape analysis. Specifically, we present a regression-based method for statistical normalization of shapes that serves as a means of disentangling parameter-dependent effects (trends) and unexplained variability.Comment: accepted for publication from the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritag