Page 311 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

290 Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook, Second Edition
excellent impression of the object, it is generally not to scale over the whole three dimensions of the object, as it is a perspective rather than an ortho- graphic projection. There is also the aforementioned difficulty of photo- copying a photograph, and it is expensive in labor and materials to reprint. However, the situation has changed a lot over the past few years and with the advent of the Internet and digital cameras, it is now easier to take and transmit a digital photograph. Such images can be taken and sent half way round the world in less time than it takes to make a photocopy. Although the intimacy issues is still there, a lot of the issues regarding the time it takes to draw an object and the costs of photography have largely changed.
The drawing is, of course, an interpretation of the object and it is vital that care be taken to ensure that this interpretation is not biased or inac- curate. If the interpretation is well accomplished, the extraneous informa- tion can be left out and only the detail significant to the archaeologist shown. The drawing can also highlight or emphasize details that are obscured, missing, or difficult to see.
One of the main reasons archaeologists have been drawing objects is because of the cost. Artifact drawings were cheap and easy to reproduce in journals which used the offset printing process that published line drawings at no additional cost to the printed page. On the other hand, photographs needed to be screened and special plates made and often the pictures needed to be printed on higher quality paper, all costing more. This was one of the main, and little appreciated, reasons why objects were not simply photographed and published. So at that time archaeological reports required line drawings to illustrate objects. One must remember this was a time when cut and paste in publication meant literally with scissors and glue. The photographs had to be screened and special plates made to enable grayscale images to be printed and high-quality paper was required. All that is now gone, and a photograph can be placed in a desktop publication as easily as a line of text and at no additional cost.
The archaeologist now has to consider the relative merits of drawing an object for publication purposes rather than photographing it. Is the time involved in the drawing process cost-effective? Are there aspects of the drawing that could be managed with photography? What aspects cannot be covered by photography? It is a complex issue and one that has no easy answer. There are still compelling reasons for drawing objects, but today the question of draw or photograph is less clear cut. Very careful decisions will have to be made when faced with this problem. If one has thousands of artifacts, to photograph may be the only solution, because the drawing process would be far too time-consuming and, if time is money, too expen- sive. It may be that representative groups of objects can be drawn to illus- trate the construction or internal features and wall thicknesses.