Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts

Thursday, May 24, 2012

My MA thesis is finished!

No funny title today.

I'm currently trying to finish my MA Computer Graphics studies and after months of struggle, I managed to wrangle my thesis into existence.

The topic is "Digital Reconstruction of Archaeological Finds" and here's the abstract:


This thesis defines archaeological reconstruction and describes its history
and evolution. It explores the use of computers in reconstruction and lists
currently used techniques and methods. Romanian archaeology and a brief
historical summary of the ancient Dacian people are discussed with Romanian
archaeologists. The practical part presents the results of attempted reconstructions
of Dacian archaeological finds supplied by Romanian archaeologists.
Various freely available applications suitable for reconstruction were
tested and their performance compared. The thesis also suggests possible
course of further research and development of digital reconstruction.
I know, it's so DRY and boring.
You can download the whole text (with pictures too!) here: http://pospabr.sweb.cz/dpJanPospisil.pdf

Anyway, as part of the thesis I also did a painting.


It shows a family of Comati (or Komatai), ancient Dacian commoners. If you want to know more, check out the link above. :)


Sunday, November 28, 2010

Treasures of the Odryssian Warriors

Just a quick one today - a link to a Flickr album with photos from an exhibit. Wonderful items from an Odryssian burial which haven't been published anywhere before (as far as I know). Odryssians were

Treasure of the Odryssian Warriors flickr album

You can read some about the Odryssian kingdom here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odrysian_kingdom

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

History is for nerds like me

Looking back pt 2 is coming (as is some art by me), I'm just stupidly busy with other stuff.

Today I've painted a historical reconstruction piece, all during my break after lunch. It's something I would love to do as a job - to be given archaeological and historical material and draw a reconstruction of historical dress, arms and armour, every day objects...

I just find this "guessing game" fascinating. So I gave it a shot - a friend of mine is working on a mod set in the Peloponnesian War and he needed a concept for Persian cavalry.

As base I used my previous knowledge of the subject and a relief found on a certain sarcophagus in Turkey. The carved cavalryman looks quite strange and figuring out a way for this armour to work was a challenge. And fun. :D (I can just about hear you being bored out of your skulls by now)

It's not so much fun when people who know more than you do about this stuff point out the things you got wrong. (like the leg strapped sword in my case, there probably was a belt and a strap attaching the scabbard to said belt, but they were just painted in red on the relief and have faded away by now). But I can always paint another version sometime. When I'm not so busy with painting stuff for other people. :)


In the second half of this post I'd like to show you something I think is quite rare and that not many people have seen. (I've downloaded the images on the artist's website long ago and have forgotten who he is. If you know, tell me!)

EDIT: The elf-eyed Eric Lofgren (http://www.ericlofgren.net/) kindly informed me that the concepts were drawn by none other than Chris Achilleos, a worldwide known artist and overall an awesome man.
You can see them (along with a few I didn't have) and many others on his website:

http://www.chrisachilleos.co.uk

I have compiled all the concept drawings made for the King Arthur movie here (warning BIG IMAGES):






They are just beautiful. Nicely drawn and very creative! They're not historically accurate, but they're obviously based on some historical knowledge of the artist and then spiced up in a believable way. True, they use more 3rd and 2nd century roman elements than the 4th or 5th which would be more appropriate, but they're still a TON better than the garbage that eventually ended up in the film. Some of the props look somewhat similar, but they're just poorly made I guess.

If you're wondering what romano-briton soldiers would've really looked like during the time of "real" Arthur, I recommend taking a look at this website.

Comitatus - late roman reenactment group

Everytime I see their reconstruction of late roman cavalry, I can't help but drool.

That's all tonight!

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