The Lincoln-Omaha Chapter of the Archaeological Society of America (AIA) presents Sarah Murray, a Classical Archaeologist specializing in Early Greece and assistant professor of Classics and Religious Studies at UNL.

Since the field was born in the late 19th century, Greek archaeology has depended on the visualization of complex information in order to both understand and communicate remains encountered in the field. In the old days, vast quantities of time were spent planning, drawing, painting, or engraving elaborate visualizations by hand. These visualizations were carefully curated works of art, immensely expensive to produce and reproduce. Today most archaeologists employ computational technologies, including but not limited to GIS applications, CAD, Photogrammetry, and LIDAR scanning, to speed the production of visualizations in both two and three dimensions. As a result, images that once took weeks to painstakingly craft can now be cranked out in a few clicks of a mouse. But to what degree have the changes wrought by computing in archaeological visualization generated breakthroughs in our knowledge of the ancient past?

The Lincoln-Omaha Chapter of the American Archaeological Institute of America is supported by the Department of Art & Art History and the Hixson-Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Program.