Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 133

The Visual Archive in Icelandic Archaeology
Fig. 10. Chart showing ratio of the four principal subjects of images in Arbók by decade.
than 3% of all photographs (admittedly
there is ambiguity around some shots
which include a person or part of a per-
son even though the main subject is
something else such as the structure or
feature). Only in a couple of instances
were there drawings of people - these
were sketches of a site, and these occur at
the tum of the century in Bruun's papers
and also Erlingsson's Ruins of the Saga
Time. Indeed, both Bruun's and
Erlingsson's perspective drawings of
sites and features stand out as exception-
al. Photographs on the whole therefore,
are used to cover exactly the same sub-
ject as drawings, though obviously pro-
ducing a different representation than a
drawing (and, noticeably, almost always
lack a scale in the frame). Indeed, this
does not mean photographs double up on
line drawings - rather it seems photo-
graphs are often substitutes for drawings.
This is clear if we compare the ratios of
the four main types of subject according
to media (Figure 9); the most common
subject of a drawing is a structure, fol-
lowed by specifíc features and then loca-
tion plans, while artefact drawings con-
stitute the smallest of all; in contrast,
almost the inverse ratio is seen with pho-
tographs, where objects comprise the
greater portion of photographs, closely
followed by features, then sites and loca-
tions. This reliance on photography espe-
cially for artefacts, explains the clear dif-
ference in the quality of drawings of
finds in Icelandic archaeology, compared
to site plans. There simply has not been
any tradition of finds illustration to set
any standards.
Although this condenses data from
over a century, there is little temporal
variability to this pattern - certainly none
which seems significant; however, there
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