De l’étude des meules à minerai médiévales à la démarche expérimentale: l’apport de la photogrammétrie.

Abstract

From the 13th to the 15th century, silver, lead and copper were produced at the Pyrenean site of Castel-Minier (Aulus-les-Bains, Ariège, France) from ore extracted on the site and in the neighbouring valleys. Thirty-five complete or fragmented granite millstones and the remains of a mill were discovered during twenty years of archaeological research. The study of this corpus and the experimental work that followed provided an opportunity to test and then generalise the use of photogrammetry. This 3D modelling technique using dense image correlation demonstrated its potential for visualising surface conditions and obtaining metrological data. Automatic shape recognition has made it possible to compensate for the fragmentation of the archaeological corpus. The computation of the distance between point clouds will allow the quantification of material losses as part of an ore milling experiment carried out at La plateforme des Arts du feu in Melle (Deux-Sèvres, France).