Integration of 3D Data, Texture and Archaeological Information in a Database Management System for Petroglyph Documentation and Interpretation

Abstract

Within our long term interdisciplinary project Nasca/Palpa modern 3D data acquisition techniques were applied for different purposes successfully in the past, particularly for mapping of large and medium scale decorations found in the landscape such as the famous geoglyphs in the Palpa and Nasca regions as well as the petroglyphs of Chichictara. Archaeologists involved in research on the Nasca culture (200 B.C. – 650 AD) and its predecessors (Paracas, 800 – 200 B.C.) are interested in the cultural and spatialdevelopment of these cultures, therefore, a common database of the aforementioned decorations is planned in order to enable investigations on relations and similarities of the motives. In this paper, we mainly treat the development of a spatial and semantic database for the petroglyphs, which were recorded in 3D by means of terrestrial laser scanning and close range photogrammetry during a field campaign in 2006.