More People in Pachacamac

I'm going to attempt a brief summary of the list I've compiled of the people that would have inhabited and visited Pachacamac. I've split them into two categories: 1) Religious and Ritual, and 2) Labor and Goods. Additionally, I'm including their sub-sections but not a description of their duties.

Religious and Ritual:
Priests
 - High priest - Temple of Pachacamac
   - Lesser priests
 - High priest - Sun Temple
   - Lesser priests
Guards
 - Temple of Pachacamac
 - Sun Temple
Pilgrims
- Dead
  - Interment of the dead
  - Re-interment of the dead
- Oracular
  - 20 day fast
  - 1 year fast
- Rituals & festivals
Acllas (chosen women)
  - Acllas
  - Mamaconas

Labor and Goods:
- Quarrymen
- Masons
- Metallurgists
- Ceramicists
- Agricultural laborers
- Fishermen
- Mitmaq and/or mit'a (corvee) laborers
- Painters

With the exception of mitmaq and mit'a laborers, the labor and goods people are pretty self explanatory. Mitmaq labor is when a group of people from one area are transplanted to another area. This may be done for various reasons such as praise or punishment. Mit'a labor is the tax due the Inka state by the subjugated groups. They would go to a place for a set amount of time in order to assist in state functions. It's unclear whether the Sun Temple was built using mitmaq or mit'a labor. Uhle has two conflicting views. The first is that the Sun Temple is not quintessentially Inka in design because it was charged to the local peoples to build the temple (mit'a labor) while the Inkas built the convent (Uhle calls it the Mamacona). His other view (from Santa Cruz) is that a group of rebellious huacas was punished and part of their punishment was to build a complex at Pachacamac (unclear which one) (mitmaq labor). This may not be a high area of contention for our purposes but is a good thing to keep in mind when dressing the building laborers.

I came across an article today by Thomas Pozorski ("The Early Horizon Site of the Huaca de los Reyes: Societal Implications". American Antiquity. 45:100-110 (1980)). In this article he calculates how many man hours it would take to build the complex of Huaca de los Reyes using the example in Charles Erasmus's article (1965). The site is similar to Pachacamac in that the basic building supplies consist of mud/clay, water, and rocks. A calculation for how many men and how many man hours it would take to build the Sun Temple could be made relatively easily using our Sun Temple model. If we calculated the area of the Sun Temple and figured out where the supplies came from (water shouldn't be too hard since there are waterworks at the site, but clay/dirt deposits are another story) we could figure out how many laborers should be working on the Sun Temple. This would allow for a more accurate reconstruction of the site and the people acting within it.

- Jeanette

Does anyone know why I can no longer post links????

I just typed out a big blog post and it wouldn't post because of my links (again).

- Carly

From Carly - Exhibit Stuff

There is an interesting project called “Get In Line” by the design team known as Evil Genius. I can not create links in this post for some reason right now so google “evil genius designs get in line”. It was designed to entertain people waiting in line for a ride at an amusement park or concert etc. While we probably won’t have to deal with huge lines of people, it could have applications for our purposes of engaging guests in a goal-oriented game like journey through our exhibit. Get In Line allows up to 6,000 people to use their cell phones to interact with games on one or more communal larger screens that everyone can see.

Evil Genius won an award for Get In Line at The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo last year. Again I cannot create a link to this for some reason. This year’s expo will be in November in Florida. This is not necessarily specific to museum exhibits but it looks like some pretty innovative ideas have come out of this expo in the past and it might be worth going to.

I have also been looking into retail applications for “virtual try-on” systems both in stores and online, as well as body scanning  for the same purposes (which is probably way to invasive for us to use). The flagship Macy’s in NYC has something called the “magic mirror” that I am going to test out on my way home to upstate NY next weekend, after which I will post more specifics. I am thinking we can use something like this to allow guests to “try on” some of our garments that will be on display.

- Carly

Peopling Pachacamac

I began my research on people Pachacamac by focusing more on the ritual and sacred activities that would have taken place at the site. From the following sources I was able to come up with this rough sketch of what life would have looked like for the religious side of the site. I'm not quite sure how to make the Excel sheet available to the project short of a Google doc (is there a way to embed a document in this post?) so I'll continue to work on it and if anyone would like to see it I can e-mail it to you. Accordingly, now I will begin more research on the people who worked at the site such as stonemasons, ceramicists (potentially), painters, roofers, food preparers, etc.

Bibliography (please ignore the helter skelter reference style):

Gose, Peter. “Oracles, Divine Kingship and Political Representation in the Inka State”. Ethnohistory. 43:1 (winter 1996) American Society for Ethnohistory.

Randall, Robert. “Qoyllur Rit’I, An Inca Fiesta of the Pleiades: Reflections on Time and Space in the Andean World”. Bull. Inst. Fr. Et. And. 1982, XI, No 1-2 pp. 37 – 81

Moore, Jerry D. “The Social Basis of Sacred Spaces in the Prehispanic Andes: Ritual Landscapes of the Dead in Chimu and Inka Societies”. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol II No 1, Part 1 (March 2004) pp. 83 – 124

Eeckhout, Peter and Lawrence Stuart Owens. “Human Sacrifice at Pachacamac”. Latin American Antiquity. Vol 19 No 4 (Dec 2008) pp. 375-398.

Paterson, Thomas C. “Pachacamac – An Andean Oracle Under Inca Rule”. Ed. D. Peter Kvietok and Daniel H. Sandweiss. Recent Studies in Andean Prehistory and Protohistory. Cornell Univ: 1983. p 159-175.

 

Steele, Paul R. and Catherine J. Allen. Handbook of Inca Mythology. ABC-CLIO, Inc: Santa Barbara, 2004.

Salomon, Frank. Urioste, Jorge. Avila, Francisco de. Ca 1573-1647. The Huarochiri Manuscript: A Testament of ancient and colonial Andean religion. Univ of Texas Press: c 1991.

MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes: vision and imagination in early colonial Peru. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ Press, c1991.

MacCormack, Sabine. "Gods, Demons and Idols in the Andes". Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol 67 No 4 Oct 2006, pp. 623-648.

Vanstan, Ina. "The Fabrics of a Peruvian Mummy Bale Found Beneath the Pachacamac Temple". Bulletin de liaison du Centre international d'e'tude des textiles anciens. Vol 19 1964 p. 20 - 37.
 

The 2 articles by Shimada, Segura, et al. listed on the PAP page here. And of course the Uhle reprint from 1991 with Izumi Shimada's preface.

- Jeanette

 

female model

Two versions of male

The two versions only differ in their mantles

from Carly

Is there any chance we could get reimbursed for going to Chicago? This exhibit looks awesome, and right up our alley. I discovered this exhibit because it uses products from Snibbe Interactive who I have been researching and tried to contact (no response yet). In particular I asked about their interactive mirror and if it would be possible to allow guests to try garments on, using a virtual version of their bodies.

- Carly

Brief Thought

I've mentioned this reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Augustus a few times in meetings as a great example of letting the viewer pick and chose different elements in a 3D archaeological reconstruction.

- Jeanette

dess up the male

Hi all, this is the result after dressing the male model. (Actually I think he looks like an ancient superman...)
Dressing up the female has met some problems because it always look weird around her chest. The model is in good and normal shape, but after dressing her and to cover her chest, that part of costume becomes extremely large...
BTW, I will upload the model to dropbox. So Adam if you can check and any feedback is more than welcome.
Hope you enjoy your weekend.
Dio

Grave lots...again

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Besides being away from the lab last week the work that I've been doing isn't very interesting to read about. Regardless, I'll attempt to update.

My primary focus of this project has been the grave lots and their context. The main problem that we've run into, and a circular one at that, is that the best clothing for our male and female models are in a room called B26. They're being stored at the bottom of drawers, wrapped in archival paper and are therefore incredibly hard to access. Recently the collection was awarded an IMLS grant so these textiles can be unwrapped, unfolded, photographed, mounted and housed. However, this grant is not yet in effect. That is why we've been slow on giving the modelers photographs of the artifacts that we would like to see the models wear. In order to speed up the process of photographing these artifacts Carly and I have gone through the room and notated wherever we could find a textile belonging to a grave lot, and if possible we took some rough photos of the object. Sadly, this part of the project is a long way from finished, but it will all be well worth it when we can dress a model completely in clothing found from a grave lot.

In order to keep everyone busy in the meantime I photographed miniature ponchos and gave them to Dio so he can begin to clothe our male. After sorting through the thousands of photographs that have already been taken Carly and I also put together a folder on the DropBox of weaving tools. Combined with the schematic of a backstrap loom and the video from the Royal Ontario Museum we're hoping that Vijay can begin to model, assemble, and maybe one day animate the backstrap loom weaving process.

During the meeting on Tuesday Dr. Badler charged me with creating a spreadsheet of what people would have done at Pachacamac. This involves a lot of reading concerning pilgrimage, interment of the dead, re-interment of the dead, Andean festivals and ceremonies, and oracles. I have already read through a great article by Shimada concerning the actions of people at Pachacamac, but it was focused on the Pilgrimage Plaza and lacked any solid interpretation. While I realize that any interpretation is just that, I hope that after this research we can create semantics for the site and then begin populating it with conjectured actions.

- Jeanette

Adam - Skin Shader

Today I gave Dio's Andean Male model a skin shader with a texture, bump map, and specular map. Here are today's results (click for a higher-resolution view):

Update:
Here he is with slightly yellower skin:

The effect is subtle but I think his skin looks better.

The model looked like an older man, so I gave him some wrinkles and some cheek blemishes. I'm still a bit unsure as to whether or not I got the tone of his skin and lips correct, though. I think he's still a bit dark.

Andean Female

my research (part 1 of ?) --Seungyeon

Hello all!

I apologize for this being blogged so late! Here are few of things I've found over the past few weeks. I will soon write another entry with more :)

For starters, here is a virtual museum of some world's ancient wonders, including an ancient Aztec temple (similar to our project! :D), the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, and La Maison Carree in Nimes, France. It's pretty cool! You can take a tour the site in either 'walk' mode or 'study' mode and as you approach different important locations, educational information about the building/site appears. In the walking mode, the camera is brought down to eye-level and you see the buildings and structures from the view of a person actually walking around the site. The 'study' mode brings the camera up in the air, as if from inside a helicopter, and you study the site grounds from above. Using your arrow keys on your keyboard, you navigate around the site. Each site is not that big but it seems all the major points have been hit. As you navigate, if there is a particularly important or significant building, as I have stated before, educational excerpts appear in the black panel on the bottom of the window. These excerpts are not very detailed and seem to state only a couple facts (perhaps because of limited space?). In the tour of the Aztec temple, I found it a bit annoying how there is not much indication as to which building will have more information provided and which are just there for display (not all structures come with facts in the tour). For the Parthenon or La Maison Carree, the tour is just of the one structure. I found it a bit amusing that, apparently, one can walk through walls in France. ;) But there is not much in the actual building. Similarly, the Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu's pyramid is pretty empty inside. As you walk in, it seemed like a real tour with information as you're lead through the hallway-like stretch, but once inside the temple, the tour ends. I tried to see if there was more on the opposite site of the temple but I got lost in all the little empty chambers....

Apparently, the Vikings walked on water and could also walk through walls! And the 3D Chariot artifact tour is not so much a tour but just a way to view the relic from all angles.

In the Aztec tour, to view the information, you have to 'walk' up very close to the structure. They used Adobe Shockwave and, if you do not already have it, you need to download Flash. I'm not sure if it is just because my internet is slow, but it took me quite some time to load the "tour" and feedback was very slow. In any case, the site in general does not provide extensively detailed information about each site and this virtual tour cannot take the place of an actual museum. But, with more time, the tours could be much more informational with more artifacts and people actually in the tours. Still, I enjoyed the site and I did learn from their little excerpts.

Esimple Studios is a company that develops platforms for clients like Heineken, Apple, General Electric, etc. I tried the GE tour. They made a virtual tour of an actual dealership. (dl Unity Web Player to view). There is not much displayed. Behind the customer service desk (?) there are some links that bring up pop-ups with what I can only guess to be more information. I cannot say for sure though (I've never studied Italian). The rest of the gallery shows pictures of beautiful cars and, when you point your cursor at the pictures, basic information about the car appears (click for more details). As I am not looking for any cars, it was an opportunity for me to see some low-quality pictures of some Audis, Alfa Romeos, Renaults, etc. :D still pretty, despite the low quality~~ Oh! and the building is very very cool. I am not much of an architect but I approve of the building. This video was made to be used on the GE website as an additional experience for potential buyers.

ES also built shopping and strip malls, games for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, and a quiz-style application for online shopping through social networking sites (i.e. Facebook) that provides you with items you might like at the end of the quiz and links to sites that sell the products. If you go to the link I provided, it takes you the the company's portfolio and when you click on each product, most come with videos that show what the company did for each client. Most of which are not very relevant but still I wanted to share this because this is one company that put 3D animation and modeling to use on the internet and through other technologies like smart phones.

Here is a link to an exhibition in Europe called the KIOSK Europe Expo. The website does not provide much information but I was looking through museums throughout the world that are striving to be more innovative and technology-forward in their exhibitions and many use Kiosks and touch screens to provide information, rather than the traditional placard or pre-recorded audio tours. Kiosks allow for the visitors to have a more personalized tour and can provide more information than a simple placard but still have the feel of the more traditional museums, somewhat. This Expo is for businessmen and professionals seeking solutions in these Kiosks for their businesses. I only post this because, under "Exhibition" > "Solutions", Museums, Exhibitions, Travel & Tourism, and Education are listed. and I'd like to go! it sounds interesting~ Anyone else up for a trip to Europe for the 2012 Expo? ;)

3D Exhibits is a company that serves clients in helping with designing exhibits for trade shows. Again, not completely relevant to our job but I thought it would help with ideas for how to use a space. There are some cool shows that they put up and they succeeded in putting a lot into the small space while not making it look too cluttered or messy. If you have the time, please look through them. especially the one they did for Nintendo. I think something like that could be used for our exhibition. The way they have the walls on the inside as large screens to show more general shots and then smaller stations, each with a computer, for visitors' personal viewing pleasure.

Here are some other links to view (again more to come~):

* The Science Museum in London has a new atmosphere gallery. They say that the expected duration of one's visit is only about 30 minutes. short in my opinion but it is very cool. They implemented different mediums to get information out to the visitors, such as, games, models, interactive displays, etc. Also, they used a combination of both touch screen monitors and plaques throughout the gallery to give information, which I think was smart.

* This is a summary of a survey conducted in January 2009 to museum-goers asking how they preferred to visit museums. A list of answers, such as, guided tours with actual guides, self-guided tours, etc. would follow. At outdoor history museums, visitors under the age of thirty were actually the least likely to want the galleries to utilize technology; while people over the age of seventy were most likely to seek out technology. Note, not a single age group was particularly enthusiastic about tech in museums in general. I do not think this is that significant (if you read the article, the survey was not very well done but it should be noted that the question was not exclusive to science museums). Just thought the results were interesting and thought I'd share. If you have the time, the article is an interesting read (and so are the comments!).

* Here is another link for those of you with some time. a presentation given by Dr. Heather King of King's College London outlining obstacles and uses of technology in museums as of April 2003.

Ok, as for projectors, I've spent a lot of time learning about different types of projectors, how they work, how they are used, etc. For everybody's viewing pleasure and convenience, I am putting together a googledoc with basic description of the different types of projectors as well as prices, specs, etc. of a couple models of each projector. I have all of the information and am working on putting together this doc so it is still a work in progress but here is the link to the doc for you to see what I've got done so far. will continue working on next week! :)

Any questions, please comment! I'll try to answer as best I can.

Please let me know what you think as well~

Best and Very Respectfully,

-Seungyeon Lee

P.S. I hope everybody enjoys 4th of July! I will, most likely, be back in Philadelphia by Monday but since I still do not have card access to the lab, I am hoping someone will be in the lab to let me in!