Eternal Witnesses

Documentation and Analysis of Carved Historic Graffiti and Inscriptions on Stone Surfaces

  • Ruth Tenschert Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany
  • Leander Pallas Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany
  • Sebastian Kempgen Slavic Linguistic, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany
  • Paul Bellendorf Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany
Keywords: 3D scanning, Deterioration, Graffiti, Multilevel documentation, Stone surfaces

Abstract

High-resolution documentation of graffiti carved into stone surfaces can help read nearly illegible characters. They can fade out due to outdoor conditions like weathering or biological coating. Indoor, the illegibility can be caused by delicately carved graffiti on a hard stone with a polished or shiny surface. These witnesses of people from former times are nonetheless important to tell stories about the place or object and help to enrich its history. This research aims to show how 3D scanning, especially structured light scanning, can help adequately document and analyse carved graffiti. Therefore, two case studies are discussed in this paper, highlighting different challenges while recording: an abandoned quarry in Bavaria, Germany, illustrating the problems of deteriorated surfaces with biological colonisation outdoors, and a gravestone in North Macedonia illustrating challenges occurring indoors with shiny, polished stone surfaces. The advantage of 3D documentation is, in both cases, to facilitate analyses, help researchers from different scientific backgrounds, and visualise and disseminate the results in a suitable way.

Author Biographies

Ruth Tenschert, Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany

Ruth Tenschert is a postdoc researcher at the KDWT (University of Bamberg). She studied Art History and Heritage Conservation and received her Master’s degrees in 2011 and 2014. In 2021, she completed her doctorate in Building Preservation Sciences. Since 2014, she has been a research associate at the University of Bamberg and, since 2018, at the KDWT in various projects. She is especially interested in cultural heritage, its materials and its changes over time, as well as documenting it for future generations. Since 2015, she has also been working on documenting and analysing historic graffiti on stone surfaces.

Leander Pallas, Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany

Leander Pallas is a research associate at the Chair of Materials and Preservation Science at the University of Bamberg (Germany). He received his Master’s degree in Heritage Conservation in 2021 and is now researching the monitoring of sensitive cultural heritage with non-destructive methods. The optimisation of the experience gained by combining different methods, as well as overcoming individual challenges on the object on site, are central to this. The visualisation of historical, partially weathered graffiti in particular, is a frequent topic of investigation.

Sebastian Kempgen, Slavic Linguistic, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany

Sebastian Kempgen is a professor emeritus of Slavic Linguistics at the University of Bamberg (Germany). He is a professor honoris causa of the St. Clemens of Ohrid-University in Bitola, North Macedonia. His broad interests include Slavic palaeography, inscriptions, and the history of Slavic scripts. He is also known for creating the most widely used Old Church Slavonic fonts for Slavic philology. He was the main editor of the largest handbook on Slavic Linguistics (Berlin 2009 and 2014), as well as three volumes containing the German contributions to the International Congress of Slavists (2008, 2013, 2018). For his achievements in the field and also for his services as vice-president of the University of Bamberg (2008–2017), he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2016). All of his publications are available online at https://www.uni-bamberg.de/slavling/personal/prof-em-dr-sebastian-kempgen.

Paul Bellendorf, Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT), Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 96047 Bamberg, Germany

Paul Bellendorf studied Materials Science in Erlangen and Heritage Conservation in Bamberg. There, he also completed his dissertation in building preservation science. Paul worked for three years at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research in Würzburg, Bronnbach branch, as head of the Environmental Monitoring and Protection of Cultural Heritage department. He then spent six years as head of the Environment and Cultural Heritage department at the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. Since October 2018, he has been a Materials and Preservation Science Professor at the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg.

Published
2024-09-06
How to Cite
Tenschert, R., Pallas, L., Kempgen, S., & Bellendorf, P. (2024). Eternal Witnesses. GoINDIGO, 147-162. https://doi.org/10.48619/indigo.v0i0.980