Internet Archaeology

Listoghil, the central monument and focal point of the Carrowmore passage tomb complex close to Sligo in north-west Ireland, has been ruined, excavated and eventually partially restored. However, the chamber is preserved in its original position. I examine the hypothesis that Listoghil was deliberately aligned to mark seasonal transitions equivalent to astronomical cross-quarter days. The methods include a horizon survey, the isolation of directional features in the monument, and computer modelling of the monument and skyscape. Folklore and legends around seasonal transits, locally, in Ireland, and in many and varied (and independently arising) contexts at temperate latitudes of the world, are seen as information sources complementary to data gathering and observation.

This article disseminates the results of a programme of detailed archaeological survey and archive research on one of Europe's most important surviving late-medieval Guild Chapels - that of the Holy Cross Guild, Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire). Today the building is part of Stratford-upon-Avon's tourist trail, located directly opposite William Shakespeare's home, 'New Place', and visited by thousands of tourists every year. However, its archaeological and historical significance has been overlooked owing to the extensive restoration of the building in the 19th and 20th centuries. This destroyed evidence for an internationally significant scheme of wall paintings within the Chapel, paid for by the London Mayor and Stratford-upon-Avon merchant, Hugh Clopton, an important member of the Holy Cross Guild and the original builder of 'New Place'. The paintings also have an important connection with Stratford-upon-Avon's most famous son, William Shakespeare, whose father may have been involved in their destruction and removal during the 16th century.Research by a team of historical archaeologists and digital heritage specialists at the Department of Archaeology, University of York, has revealed the significance of the Guild Chapel through the creation of a digital model and textual paradata, which form the focus of this article. The project is ground-breaking in that it moves beyond the traditional use of digital models as virtual reconstructions of past buildings to use the model itself as a research tool through which the user can explore and validate the evidence for the scheme directly. This is achieved through the creation of a palimpsest of antiquarian drawings of the paintings, made as they were revealed during restoration works in the 19th and 20th centuries, and set within their 3-dimensional architectural context. The model allows the user to compare and contrast differences in the recording methods, iconographies and interpretations of the scheme. It is supported by the 'paradata' that forms the core of the article text, and which provides an innovative model for the analysis of the antiquarian records of the scheme, and their contextual meaning. The project reveals the Guild Chapel at Stratford-upon-Avon to be one of the finest examples of mercantile and guild patronage of the period, shedding important light on the patronage of ecclesiastical art on the eve of the Reformation, and revealing important connections between provincial guild architecture of Warwickshire and internationally significant schemes in London and Paris. It also provides a ground-breaking model of the ways in which digital heritage technologies can be harnessed not only by historical archaeology, but within the arts and humanities more widely.

Reviewed by Nicole Beale and Jessica Ogden. This review is open access.

Reviewed by Michael Shanks and Christopher Witmore. This review is open access.

Since their declassification in 1995, CORONA satellite images collected by the United States military from 1960-1972 have proved to be an invaluable resource in the archaeology of the Near East. Because CORONA images pre-date the widespread construction of reservoirs, urban expansion, and agricultural intensification the region has undergone in recent decades, these high-resolution, stereo images preserve a picture of archaeological sites and landscapes that have often been destroyed or obscured by modern development. Despite its widely recognised value, the application of CORONA imagery in archaeological research has remained limited to a small group of specialists, largely because of the challenges involved in correcting spatial distortions produced by the satellites' unusual panoramic cameras. This article presents results of an effort to develop new methods of efficiently orthorectifying CORONA imagery and to use these methods to produce geographically corrected images across the Near East, now freely available through an online database. Following an overview of our methods, we present examples of how recent development has affected the archaeological record, new discoveries that analysis of our CORONA imagery database has already made possible, and emerging applications of CORONA including stereo analysis and DEM extraction.