3D History for Ukraine: Archaeological Museum of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Overview

The dataset introduces artifacts from the exhibition of the Archaeological Museum of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The Museum underwent shelling in 2022-2023. Therefore, the project "3D History for Ukraine" aimed to provide the digital preservation of archaeological artifacts from the Museum.

The collection of the Archaeological Museum contains numerous key examples of Bronze Age artifacts from the forest steppe and steppe of Ukraine. Twelve models, published at Open Context and SketchFab during this project, introduce weaponry and pottery of the Middle Bronze Age Katakombna culture (circa 2800—2200 BCE). Objects belong to the burial assemblages and were found in kurgans during the rescue excavations on the construction sites in the late 20th century. Their known archaeological context is relatively sparse. However, more information can be obtained from the Archives of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (see "Related publications"). Vessels were mainly ornamented by the cord or linear incisions and were typical for the Ukrainian steppe during the third millennium BCE.

The project "3D History for Ukraine" has been arranged by the NGO "Archaic" as a crowdfunding event to raise money and purchase digitization equipment to preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage digitally. The event enabled the buying of the Revopoint Pop 2 laser scanner — a good starting solution to push Ukrainian digitization efforts forward. The solution, however, required establishing a separate laser scanning protocol for the low-cost solution on the digitization of archaeological heritage. Several point clouds were obtained by a laser scanner, denoised in CloudCompare, and aligned manually. The information about the objects' texture has been acquired by the camera and projected to the model in Meshlab. The evaluated metric accuracy of the models is 1-2 mm. Right after the project was set up and the first models were acquired, the team's core was drafted for military service, so now it is put on hold until more resources come.

The project webpage is available here.

Methodological Notes

The points for further modeling have been acquired through laser scanning with a Revopoint Pop 2 laser scanner (2 to 6 point clouds per item). Several point clouds were aligned in CloudCompare and Meshed through the Screen Poisson algorithm. Later, the texture was added to the mesh from images through Meshlab.

Potential Applications of the Data for Reuse:

This collection of 3D models is minimally representative of the common types and styles for the material culture of the Middle Bronze Age in Ukraine. It requires further updates and additions but is an excellent start to deep into the unique phenomenon of Katakombna culture — no other accurate 3D models of this assemblage are available anywhere else so far. It is suitable for the virtual study of the Bronze Age material culture of Steppe and Forest-Steppe Ukraine, metric parameters of the Bronze Age pottery, its structure, texture, morphology, and clay features.

Current Disposition of Artifacts:

The objects from which these data are derived are currently housed in the Archaeological Museum of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The museum has no special storage and wasn’t evacuated from Kyiv despite the intense shelling in 2022-2023.

Related Publications

Antonenko, B., Bondar, N., Vasylchenko, S., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. Chmykhov, N. (1975). Field report of the Dnipro archaeological expedition of the Kyiv University in 1975 (Sci. Archive, 1975/51)

Antonenko, B., Vasylchenko, S., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L., Chmykhov, N. (1977). Field report of the Nikopol archaeological expedition of the scientific and research center of Kyiv State University in the construction zone of the II Nikopol irrigation massive in 1977 (Sci. Archive 1977/80)

Antonenko, B., Vasylchenko, S., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. (1980). Field report of the archaeological expedition of the scientific and research center of Kyiv State University along the construction zone of the II line of the "Dnipro-Donbass" channel in 1980 (Sci. Archive 1980/97)

Antonenko, B., Vondar, N., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. (1983). Field report of the Voroshylovgrad archaeological expedition of Kyiv State University in 1983 (Sci. Archive 1983/169)

Antonenko, B., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. (1988). Field report of the Voroshylovgrad archaeological expedition of the Kyiv State University in 1987 (Sci. Archive 1987/106)

Antonenko, B., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. (1989). Field report of the Voroshylovgrad arcaheological expedition of the Kyiv State University in 1988 (Sci. Archive 1988/20)

Antonenko, B., Pioro, I., Samoylenko, L. (1990). Field report of the Voroshylovgrad archaeological expedition of the Kyiv State University in 1989 (Sci. Archive 1989/153)

Samoylenko, L. (1988). Kurgans of Yamna culture in the Bazavluk river basin in the Dnipropetrovsk Steppe. In: New sites of Yamna culture in Ukrainian Steppe. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 64—78.

Pioro, V. (1999). Graves of the Katakombna culture with the production tools in the Luaganska province, Vita Antiqua, 2, 62—68 (http://vitaantiqua.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/10VA2pioro.pdf)