Quick 3D record: a low-cost method of documentation and analysis of scattered architectures in the EMCHAHE project

Abstract

This work makes part of the Marie Curie CIG EMCHAHE project: Early Medieval Churches: History, Archaeology and Heritage (2013-2017), lead by José Carlos Sánchez-Pardo at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The research area of this project is the archaeology and history of the early medieval rural churches and their value for cultural management in Galicia (Northwest Spain). EMCHAHE is a project with several methodological challenges that we must face with limited resources. One of these challenges is the territorial scale, which involves the analysis of a large number of sites scattered through three rural areas of Galicia. This dispersion increases the problems and the cost of the access and the study of each church. Another one is the difficulty of identifying and analysing evidence of early medieval phases in the churches due to the frequent existence of several reforms and reconstructions. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a church documentation method as agile in field as accurate enough, which allows recording the graphic and geometric information necessary for a detailed study (stratigraphic analysis of the walls, identification of architectural elements, etc.) with the lowest cost. The poster will summarize the workflow and results of this quick and low-cost record of scattered churches proposal.