Digital 3D Reconstruction and Simulation of Fragmentary Museum Artefacts: A Tiwanaku Incense Burner from the Ethnologisches Museum of Berlin

This paper presents a three dimensional reconstructive approach to the modelling of artifact fragments. An artefact from the collection of the Ethnologisches Museum of Berlin is examined: a fragment of a Tiwanaku incense burner with painted decoration. Rather than study the artefact in its current state, the visualization aims to show its initial state, i.e. the moment when it was used as an incense burner. Data from archaeology, material culture, indigenous aesthetics, and iconography were combined to determine the original appearance of the artefact and were visualized by using advanced modelling techniques. A computer simulation was performed, not only to show the vessel in the moment of its use, but also to illustrate the interaction between vessel’s form and the smoke produced in an effort to uncover the aesthetics of Tiwanaku’s ritual art. Additionally, the paper discusses both reconstruction and simulation as epistemological tools. [digital 3D reconstruction, Tiwanaku incense burner, cultural heritage, digital archaeology, simulation]