Gene A. Ware

Multispectral document enhancement: ancient carbonized scrolls

Multispectral imaging of carbonized documents has been shown to be an effective diagnostic tool as well as providing for spectral analysis and enhancement. The Herculaneum scroll diagnostic data showed that sufficient contrast could be obtained with an image at a single wavelength in the near infrared. On the other hand, the Petra scroll multispectral data demonstrates the analytical and enhancement capabilities provided by this form of document conservation and archiving.

Multispectral analysis of ancient Maya pigments: implications for the Naj Tunich corpus

Naj Tunich, in southeastern Peten, Guatemala, is one of only five caves currently known to contain Maya hieroglyphic writing. It is universally recognized as the preeminent Maya cave site because its corpus ofinscriptions exceeds those of the other four caves combined. In June of 1998, over half of these inscriptions were documented at visible and near-infrared wavelengths using multi-spectral imaging techniques. Spectral differences were noted in the Naj Tunich images especially in the infrared. Spectral signatures were used to identify differences in the Naj Tunich pigments and suggest that at least three different pigments were used. More importantly, the ability to document spectral differences reveals far more complexity in the Naj Tunich corpus than previously appreciated. Several instances of over-painting, repainting or touching up were discovered. The cases of over-painting reveal the temporal complexity of the drawings and suggest that the painting occurred over a longer period of time than had been proposed by previous investigation. The ability to characterize pigment composition using spectral data has also led the authors to question a number of relational differences and similarities between drawings proposed on the basis of stylistic analysis.

Knot direction in a khipu/alphabetic text from the Central Andes

Khipus are knotted-string devices that were used in the Inka Empire for communication and for recording information. We recently analyzed the names and associated khipu cords in a newly discovered hybrid khipul alphabetic text from the Central Andes. Results indicate a significant relationship in the text between knot direction and a form of social organization known as moieties, in which S-knots correspond to the upper (Hanan) moiety and Z-knots correspond to the lower (Urin) moiety. This relationship suggests that knot direction was used to indicate moiety in Andean khipus and, as such, may represent the first decipherment of a structural element in khipus since the decoding of the number system in the 1920s.

Temporal Change Enhancement in Multispectral Images Remotely Sensed from Satellites

The application of principal components analysis (PCA) to multispectral satellite images is a routine way to present the data in false-color composite images. These composite images include a very high percentage of available information and have no correlation between the displayed colors. PCA routines are included in commercial GIS software, and custom algorithms are in wide use.This paper describes an early application of a new, genetic algorithm based, PCA routine. Landsat data for an Idaho farm were evaluated for temporal changes using this new algorithm, and the eigenvalues consistently converged with excellent results.