Data copyright © Tarbet Isle Dig Project, ACCORD project unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Dr
Stuart
Jeffrey
Research Fellow
Glasgow School of Art
Digital Design Studio
The Hub
Pacific Quay
Glasgow
G51 1EA
Scotland
Tel: +44 (0) 141 566 1465
The ACCORD team worked with a group who were excavating medieval remains on Tarbet Isle on a community excavation run by Northlight Heritage with professional archaeologist Heather James on the 21st and 23rd of October 2014. This group included including two American-Scots who claim family roots to the clan MacFarlane, and volunteer amateur archaeologists. Together on Tarbet Isle we 3D recorded and modelled the excavated trenches on the island which have uncovered the foundations of a building dating to the medieval period and a 1612 plaque built into the church wall at Luss, dedicated to clan chieftain John MacFarlane. We used the technique of photogrammetry to produce these models.
Five individuals who were volunteering on excavations at Tarbet Isle, Argyll and Bute took part in this ACCORD project. The Tarbet Isle excavation took place from the 14th to 24th of October. The ACCORD project took place on the final few days and aimed to work with the group to record the site and other objects regarded as of significance. The team included the excavation director, Heather James, from Northlight Heritage, the two instigators of the project who had travelled from the USA to excavate here, and two amateur archaeologists; one of whom is a member of the Hidden Heritage group based in nearby Arrochar, Argyll and Bute, and another who is a member of ACFA (the Association of Certified Field Archaeologists). The group had met each other through taking part in the excavations and did not know each other well prior to this, except for the two Americans who were close friends, having met through the Clan MacFarlane Society http://www.clanmacfarlane.org/. The two Americans had financed the excavations in order to research their clan roots and history in the "heart of MacFarlane country". The mission statement of the Clan Macfarlane Worldwide society, which has over 700 members, is:
"to explore, document, preserve, and share the history, heritage, and traditions of ancient Clan MacFarlane, and to serve as a connection for all MacFarlane Clan and Sept descendants worldwide."
For photogrammetry, in all three cases, data collection consisted of digital images captured with varying cameras owned by the participants. Before any images were taken, the camera and lens settings were set to automatic, with no flash and images captured at JPG fine quality (metadata for each image is provided in the accompanying excel spreadsheet). A total of 47 digital images were captured in order to create a photogrammetric model of Trench 2, while 71 images were taken to create a model of Trench 4. Since the plaque on Luss church was located high up, and is therefore not clearly visible from the ground, 42 images were taken in order to create a photogrammetric model using the AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm F3.5-5.6G lens on a Nikon D5300 DSLR camera attached to an elevated 5 meter pole.
All ACCORD datasets provided via the ADS are licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license