Virtual archeology is a new and rapidly developing area. The main idea is to create the models of the actual artifacts which were found or to make virtual reconstructions which present the archeologists' ideas about the appearance of reconstructed sites. This has many advantages: the reconstructed artifacts can be placed in museums in computers instead of original ones. This prevents them from being damaged or stolen. Second, the virtual archeology makes the archeological result more easily accessible to the public - everyone having the access to internet can make the virtual tour in the reconstructed site.
In the framework of cooperation between Archeological Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences and Computer Graphics Group at Czech Technical University in Prague a decision was taken to perform virtual reconstruction of the Celtic oppidum Závist near Prague. Since the area of this oppidum is immense and the archeologist do not have exact information about its appearance, the acropolis of the oppidum has been chosen for reconstruction. You can see the result of Figure 1.
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Figure 1: Reconstruction of the acropolis on
Závist, 450 B.C.
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Since the model of the acropolis was created by means not manageable by the archeologists (3ds MAX, manual editing of the VRML code) a decision was taken to develop a simple system which would allow to create the simple virtual reconstruction from the archeological map.
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Figure 2: The reconstruction made with the system for reconstruction
for archeological sites.
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Currently two other reconstructions of the acropolis on Závist are being created : from the period 500 B.C. and 550 B.C.
The models has been used by Czech archeologists. One of applications to come are pictures in the book under preparation.
The authors would like to express thanks to archeologists in the Archeological Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences who provided the help, support and advice during the course of the project.
