Digital Heritage and 3D Printing: Trans-media Analysis and the Display of Prehistoric Rock Art from Valcamonica

摘要

This paper examines the creation and use of 3D prints as an archaeological methodology of preservation, interpretation and public presentation. In their local Lombard dialect, the 150,000 rock engravings of Valcamonica (BS), are known as Pitoti or 'little puppets'. 3D printing methods have been used to transform digital scans of the engraved southern Alpine rock art into 3D puppets [1]. This methodology can be understood as solidifying air. The printed plastic resin replaces the air in the void created by the Copper, Bronze and Iron Age artists' stone hammer blow's. A practice based transmedia research stratergy used 3D printing combined with dance and shadow work to examine the potential meanings of a particularly enigmatic Hermaphrodite rock art figure, coming up with diverse interpretations.