STONE WALLS, CHARACTERS, MOSS AND TREES – MULTILEVEL DOCUMENTATION OF INSCRIPTIONS AND GRAFFITI FROM DIFFERENT CENTURIES IN A FORMER SANDSTONE QUARRY

Abstract

The Fingalshöhle near Illesheim, Germany, is today both an archaeological and a cultural heritage site. This paper will show the application and analysis of the combination of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and high resolution structured-light-scanning (SLS) as a multilevel documentation approach to help preserve this unique location with its graffiti and inscriptions from the past 300 years. The site is a decommissioned sandstone quarry which has been gradually taken over by nature. The quarry served as field quarters for troops during several wars, with soldiers carving inscriptions into the sandstone walls. In the later 18th and 19th centuries, the site attracted visitors, who also immortalised themselves. These witnesses to the site’s diverse history are threatened by the ever-increasing overgrowth of the quarry, and above all by weathering processes impacting the unprotected stone. Photographs show that over periods as short as the last 15 years, climatic effects have completely obliterated some inscriptions. The characters are thus slowly but steadily being erased. Since the decay could only be stopped with massive interventions to the quarry itself, the aim is that a documentation should preserve, at least in digital form, the current state, giving future generations the opportunity to experience and explore this multi-layered site. As well as recording the vulnerable inscriptions, the digitising process can in some cases make even the most severely degraded inscriptions legible once more. The processed data serves as documentation for the municipality, and can be used for future research approaches and monitoring purposes as well as dissemination.