Shaping the Bronze Age: East Anglian Axes 3

This application asks you digitise the shape of bronze axes via your browser. It makes use of web GIS functions (Geographic Information Systems) to capture vector outlines that can then be used to arrange the axes into stylistic and chronological groups in a formal, quantitative way. When you participate, the platform will load a scanned drawing or photograph of an axe such as some examples below. These front-facing and side-facing views are typical of how archaeologists have traditionally recorded object shapes (only rarely are they published as 3d models for instance).

Once the scanned photograph or drawing has been loaded, you can proceed in a series of three reasonably quick steps as follows:

• Find the front-view of the axe and draw an outline polygon of it.
• After clicking next, find the side-view of the axe and draw an outline polygon of it.
• After clicking next, draw straight lines for the blade-width and butt-width, optionally adding a lines for the stop (if the axe has a hafting-stop), inner- and outer loop (if the axe has a loop).

In step 1, you will be asked to draw one or more polygons that mark out the original outline of the axe shape in front view. So if there a small bits of the axe missing or broken from the blade or sides, then please use your judgement to fill in the gaps. Some people prefer to draw the outline in a single polygon, whilst others draw multiple overlapping polygons to achive the same coverage (which we will merge later). The image below shows these two alternative ways of doing this.

Step 2 asks you to do the same thing for the profile-view of the axe. Again, please use your judgment to reconstruct where small bits of the axe profile are missing or broken. The image below provides two examples, one of a photograph and one of a line-drawing. If the side view is missing from your loaded image, then just click Next without digitising a side-view.

Step 3 is the final one and is slightly more complicated. It asks you to add extra indicative lines to what you have done. Specifically, you need mark lines (not polygons this time) across top of the blade and across the butt of the axe (in that order and extending beyond the axe as in the images below). In those cases where a 'hafting stop' exists, you can also mark that with a third line (curved or straight as you think best). Finally, if the axe is one with a side-loop, we'd like you to draw inner and outer lines to mark the loop (extending clearly inside the axe outline as shown below, so we can edit them later). Once you have digitised lines for blade-width, butt-width and optionally the stop and loop, you are ready, you can then press submit to cmplete the task.

How to use the application's digitising toolbar:

Photo loaded: This label simply indicates whether or not you are waiting for the scan to be loaded into the application. If it says 'Photo loaded', then you can begin digitising.

Front-view: This label indicates what part of the object you are currently digitising.

Draw: This option is selected by default, at the beginning of a task. Click on 'Draw' whenever you want to start drawing a polygon or line. Once you complete your drawing of a feature, the delineating line will turn from blue to a different colour.

Edit: This option is enabled once there is at least one complete feature drawn. After clicking on 'Edit', choose the line or polygon you wish to edit by clicking once anywhere on it. It will turn blue, and become available for editing such that you will be able to re-position the blue nodes that give the line its shape.

Delete: Use this option if you wish to delete your existing drawing (for the current step only).