Abstract
Reconstructions of archaeological sites and finds have always been an important part of presentation of archaeologist's work to the general public. Both classical drawings and 3d models allow us to recreate incomplete artefacts and present more comprehensible image of the past.
However, these reconstructions are often created as more or less standalone products, an eye candy created purely for general public, parallel to the actual research. This is an unfortunate situation, when funds are spent on reconstructions with barely any or no research value.
In addition, because of the price of these artworks they do not evolve and tend to entrench a certain image, though this image can change significantly during time. The general public may not mind if they are not presented with the most accurate and up-to-date reconstructions, but archaeologists should.
Even though our imagination is trained to extrapolate the whole image from pieces, being able to materialise this mental image is very important, because the process makes us ask more detailed and less obvious questions about the subjects. This paper gives examples from my field of ancient building and architecture, where the typical questions might be about position and size of doors and windows, roofing systems, light conditions, heat and water management, original position of architectural elements, phasing etc.
Such models can also incorporate other data, such as models of finds, archaeobotanical data, or even reconstruction of the ancient landscape. Project of an archaeological reconstruction should be more than a set of images for public presentations.
It should be a living organism, fed by the newest data from different sources, tamed by careful documentation of comparanda and degree of precision of the sources, and growing to present a very realistic image of the past based on our current knowledge.