Laser scanning at Stonehenge
Encyclopedia
Scanning the carvings
The first use of 3D laser scanning3D scanner
A 3D scanner is a device that analyzes a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape and possibly its appearance . The collected data can then be used to construct digital, three dimensional models....
at Stonehenge was of the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
dagger and axes inscribed on the sarsen
Sarsen
Sarsen stones are sandstone blocks found in quantity in the United Kingdom on Salisbury Plain, the Marlborough Downs, in Kent, and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Hampshire...
s, which was undertaken in 2002 by a team from Wessex Archaeology
Wessex Archaeology
Wessex Archaeology is one of the largest private archaeological organisations operating in the United Kingdom, based near Salisbury in Wiltshire.-Background:...
and Archaeoptics. They used a Minolta
Minolta
Minolta Co., Ltd. was a Japanese worldwide manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It is perhaps best known for making the first integrated autofocus 35mm SLR camera system...
Vivid 900 scanner to analyse and record surfaces of the prehistoric
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
and post-medieval carvings
Stone carving
Stone carving is an ancient activity where pieces of rough natural stone are shaped by the controlled removal of stone. Owing to the permanence of the material, evidence can be found that even the earliest societies indulged in some form of stone work....
.
The Bronze Age carvings of a dagger
Dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a sharp point designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. The design dates to human prehistory, and daggers have been used throughout human experience to the modern day in close combat confrontations...
and an axehead were first discovered by archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
Richard J. C. Atkinson
Richard J. C. Atkinson
Richard John Copland Atkinson CBE was a British prehistorian and archaeologist.-Biography:He was born in Evershot, Dorset and went to Sherborne School and then Magdalen College, Oxford, reading PPE...
in 1953 on stone number 53, one of the imposing sarsen
Sarsen
Sarsen stones are sandstone blocks found in quantity in the United Kingdom on Salisbury Plain, the Marlborough Downs, in Kent, and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Hampshire...
trilithon
Trilithon
A trilithon is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top . It is commonly used in the context of megalithic monuments...
s. A contemporary survey in 1956 by Robert Newall revealed that the total number of axes on this stone totalled 14, all on the same face of the stone, looking inwards to the centre of the stone circle. Typologically, the axes have a Middle Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
date.
The surface of stone 53 containing Bronze Age carvings was laser scanned at a resolution of 0.5mm, resulting in hundreds of thousands of individual 3D
Dimension
In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
measurements known as a point cloud
Point cloud
A point cloud is a set of vertices in a three-dimensional coordinate system. These vertices are usually defined by X, Y, and Z coordinates, and typically are intended to be representative of the external surface of an object....
. These data were then processed into a meshed 3D solid model for analysis using custom software written by Archaeoptics called Demon3D.
The team pioneered some visualisation techniques to enhance the outlines of the known carvings. During this process, the faint outline of two previously unknown axes was spotted in an animation, separate from the carvings recorded by Newall. Subsequent enhancement of the data confirmed that the shapes were of flange
Flange
A flange is an external or internal ridge, or rim , for strength, as the flange of an iron beam such as an I-beam or a T-beam; or for attachment to another object, as the flange on the end of a pipe, steam cylinder, etc., or on the lens mount of a camera; or for a flange of a rail car or tram wheel...
d axes, similar in shape to those clearly visible, but either badly eroded
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
, or were originally carved much shallower than their counterparts. The larger of the two carvings differs slightly from the other axes in that it has two 'lugs' along its shaft, and others have interpreted that it could represent either an axe, a mushroom, or a ram's skull.
The results of these investigations were published in an article entitled "The Stonehenge Laser Show" in the November 2003 edition of British Archaeology. The project website can be visited at http://www.stonehengelaserscan.org/ where animations and interpretations of the data may be viewed.