Classification of archaeological fragments using a description language

This paper presents an application of 3D-reconstruction and graph theory in the field of archaeology. The classification and reconstruction of ancient pots and vessels out of fragments (so-called sherds) is an important aspect of archaeological research work. Up to now this is a time consuming, inaccurate, and subjective task which leads to tons of unclassified fragments in archives. Computer aided classification could help to get a better understanding of ancient cultures, since all data of an excavation would be accessible to the public, not only selected parts as it is now. We propose a bottom-up strategy to classify fragments. The profile section (which is a section a the fragment in the direction of the rotational axis) is segmented into its primitives (with certain properties like length) and relations among this primitives (like position and curvature of connecting points). These primitives and the relations form a description language, different profiles have different descriptions.