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Digital Field Trips

Digital Field Trips uses a visualization studio with 360° projection + 3D printing to recreate sites, landscapes, and material objects for students of medieval European history. Each trip focuses on a different mode of analysis: material culture, visual narratives, and space.

Published onFeb 21, 2022
Digital Field Trips
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This video shows the various digital field trips inside the Visualization Studio.

Description

Digital Field Trips uses a visualization studio with 360° projection + 3D printing to recreate sites, landscapes, and material objects for students of medieval European history. Each trip focuses on a different mode of analysis:  material culture, visual narratives, and space & place.

Runes & Writing: Viking Graffiti in Neolithic Orkney

Digital visualization allows students to experience the landscape with its Neolithic remains, transcribe and transliterate runic graffiti in its architectural space, and interpret graffiti in relation to its space and place. The use of an immersive environment brings alive the questions and theories of the anthropology of writing and the archaeology of space. 

 “Graffiti . . . ‘speak’ not just as literary fragments but as part of a very particular material environment.” Kristina Milnor, Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii, p.9.

Image of a curved screen, showing a widescreen image of a Neolithic ring.

A 360-degree panorama of a stonehenge introduces students to the Neolithic landscape around Maeshowe.

19c drawing of Interior of Maeshowe when opened & its floor plan.

Maeshowe was opened by nineteenth-century amateur archeologists and found to be a Neolithic passage grave with 3 burial chambers. 40+ medieval inscriptions, images, and crosses were found in the main chamber.

Image of carved runes on a stone in Maeshowe, reading “Vémundr reist” in runes.

The medieval graffiti were carved in runes by Norse speakers. The most common is a medieval version of “Kilroy was here”: “Vémundr carves (Vémundr reist).”

Image of futhark, transcription sheet and clue envelope with the answer.

Students, with the Futhark, the runic alphabet, in hand, transcribe and transliterate the inscriptions from the walls of Maeshowe. PDF available here.

Slide showing translations on diagram.

After learning to transcribe and transliterate, students analyze the translated graffiti in the context of space & place. 

Image of stone with translations of graffiti on treasure.

A cluster of graffiti refers to finding treasure inside Maeshowe. By analyzing the place where graffito was inscribed, we can see how the graffists played-off one another and competed over the placement, cleverness, boasting and daring of their inscriptions. 

Photograph of an animal carved on the walls of Maeshowe. Interpreted by most as a dragon.

Imagined as an early medieval barrow, Maeshowe is a place connected with treasure – and danger. For, many medieval Norse folktales tell of the undead mound-dweller or the dragon who inhabits burial mounds stuffed with treasure. 


Analyzing Material Culture: Ship Burials at Oseberg and Sutton Hoo

The early medieval ship burials at Oseberg (Norway) and Sutton Hoo (England) and their artefacts are the focus of this digital field trip. The combination of 3-D printing with digital images turns the studio into a museum space where students analyze material culture hands-on. 

A ferocious looking animal carved from wood, slightly damaged.

Intricately carved objects like this one were recovered from the Oseberg ship burial site, and discussed in class as aspects of material culture.


Five black and white 3D printed objects rest on a table.

These five 3D printed objects were created from high-resolution digital scans of the original artifacts from the Oseberg ship burial site. 

Image showing many small objects retrieved from the Oseberg ship burial site.

An assortment of objects recovered from the Oseberg ship burial site. The small platter with the knife was one of the scanned objects used for the class.

Two helmets, the original one on the left badly damaged, and a reconstruction in bright metal on the right.

Reconstructions like this helmet help students visualize the incredible detail and intricacy of the pieces recovered from the Sutton Hoo site.

Image of an extremely intricate belt buckle box.

This belt buckle from Sutton Hoo shows superb craftsmanship, and points to the rich visual culture of the time.

Image of a small buddha, carved from metal on the edge of a bucket.

This tiny carved buddha on the edge of a bucket from the Oseberg ship burial points to a rich trade in goods and ideas.

Pdf handout for students.

Students learn to analyze material culture by handling printed objects and then applying these techniques to images of rare artifacts. PDF available here.

Graphic Narratives: The Bayeux Embroidery as Visual History

Students experience the Bayeux Embroidery in life-size digital replication on the walls of the visualization studio and analyze medieval visual narratives by applying Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.

Image showing a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry up top, with an analysis by comic book artist Scott McCloud on the bottom.

Students were introduced to Scott McCloud’s visual analysis tools and asked to apply those principles to the Bayeux Tapestry on the walls around them. 

Section of comic book exploring the role of closure: "Comics is Closure!"

Excerpt from McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

Comic book page exploring various strategies in comics.

Excerpt from McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

Project Creator or Project Team Name

Julie Mell: Julie Mell is Associate Professor of History at North Carolina State University, where she teaches medieval European history and Jewish history. Her current interests focus on the history of play, game theory, and the anthropology of writing. She published recently "Graffiti as Gaming: Vikings at Play in the Orkney Islands" in Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages.

Shaun Bennett: Shaun Bennett is the research librarian for Business, Education, and Data Literacy at the North Carolina State University Libraries, where he primarily works with students and faculty to make sure they have the techniques and tools to succeed at NC State. His research interests include instructional design, experiential learning, and medieval Scandinavian literary culture.

Picture of creators presenting a paper on visualization in the visualization studio.

Photo of collaborators.

Institutional affiliation/s

History Dept., NC State University

Research Librarian, NC State University Libraries

Years active

Bayeux Embroidery = 10+ years

Runes & Ship Burials = 6 years 

Keywords/Tags

medieval Europe, ship burials, graffiti, runes, anthropology of place & space, anthropology of writing, graphic narratives, material culture

To learn more

The article that emerged from the digital field trip on Maeshowe was published in: V. Kopp, E. Lapina (eds.) Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Brepols, 2020)

Material Culture - 3D Scans and rotatable PDFs: Viking Ship Museum

Runes & Writing: Photos and Info on Neolithic Orkney

3D animation video on Maeshowe

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