The visual consumption of mural painting in Late Bronze Age Akrotiri (Thera, Greece) : a computational approach to visibility analysis on three-dimensional built environments

Abstract

The devices used for the communication of meaning in mural painting often pervade pictorial space to reach out into actual space. This fact is often acknowledged in interpretations of Theran wall paintings that have been occasionally concerned with aspects of human experience and engagement with the decorated spaces. However, the reception of Theran murals within their original architectural context has been neither thoroughly nor systematically studied. This is mainly due to the lack of formal methodologies by which human engagement with ancient and partially preserved built environments could effectively be explored. This thesis investigates aspects of the visual experience of Theran wall-painting, and more particularly, the visibility of the murals and its relationship firstly to the iconographic meaning of the painted scenes, and secondly to the social function and significance of the paintings. It introduces a new method of visibility analysis that integrates 3D modelling and spatial technologies (GIS) to take account of the nature of human experience in the built environment which is essentially three-dimensional. The suggested approach also formally addresses the problems of uncertainty and incomplete data impact on archaeological interpretations. Finally, it discusses the issue of human movement which is strongly linked to the visual experience of built space and introduces an agent-based approach that aims to investigate aspects of mobility in populated spaces within the social context of movement in the past. the archaeological record along with their in The above methodology is employed to explore the reception of mural decoration in a visually complex ritual space (building Xeste 3), examining the relationship between visual emphasis in pictorial space and the visual exposure of individual elements of a composition in actual space. In this way, it highlights meaningful patterns in the archaeological record that would have otherwise remained unobserved. The results of the analysis are also suggestive of movement and circulation during ritual performances that could have taken place in the building. Furthermore, the same methodology is used to investigate whether pedestrians traversing the street network could have seen, through open windows, the wall paintings that embellished the interiors of elaborate private houses. The application of visibility analysis offers insights into the social significance and functions of Theran murals, illuminating their possible symbolic role in establishing power relations in the prehistoric society of Akrotiri.

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