Abstract:
In this article, we analyze the fracture patterns observed in wall paintings excavated at Akrotiri, a Bronze Age Aegean settlement
destroyed by a volcano on the Greek island of Thera around 1630 BC. We use interactive programs to trace detailed
fragment boundaries in images of manually reconstructed wall paintings. Then, we use geometric analysis algorithms to study
the shapes and contacts of those fragment boundaries, producing statistical distributions of lengths, angles, areas, and adjacencies
found in assembled paintings. The result is a statistical model that suggests a hierarchical fracture pattern where
fragments break into two pieces recursively along cracks nearly orthogonal to previous ones. This model is tested by comparing
it with simulation results of a hierarchical fracture process. The model could be useful for predicting fracture patterns of other
wall paintings and/or for guiding future computer-assisted reconstruction algorithms.