Determination of the method of drawing of prehistoric wall-paintings via original methods of pattern recognition and image analysis

In this paper a new general methodology is introduced for the determination of the method of construction of prehistoric wall-paintings. The approach consists of algorithms that perform a) preprocessing of the contours of the figures appearing in the wall-paintings, b) determination of pattern repetitions in the contours of the depicted entities, c) classification of these repeated patterns into proper geometric prototypes, d) curve fitting. By means of this methodology, the authors demonstrated that a number of wall-paintings excavated at Mycenae and in Aegean islands, made before the 13th century B.C., were drawn via the use of guides. These stencils - guides were very precise geometric figures and in particular linear spirals and hyperbolae, thus indicating knowledge of constructing these complicated schemes more than 1000 years before the appearance of classical age mathematics.