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Excavation plans, section drawings, maps, and drawings of archaeological finds are the strongest common currency of archaeological illustration. The traditional, developed forms of these illustrations are allied in their reliance on visual codes derived from the hand-drawn, inked line - their shared roots lying in the development of archaeological draughtsmanship as a craft. These monochrome images form the basic building blocks of archaeology's visual vocabulary, but their role within the discipline can be seen to reach far further than that of illustrative tools and visual prompts. The mechanisms that create these images are not subservient or subsidiary to the overall processes of archaeology that create narratives of the past, but are in fact central to such production. Although these drawn forms are prevalent in many of archaeology's illustrative realms, it is their relationship with the excavation process that has established their position as the visual lingua franca of archaeology.
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Embedded within these illustrative forms is an implicit demonstration of technique. Such a demonstration becomes part of the mechanism through which archaeological identities are established, by all those involved in the archaeological production process. The character of the discipline's visual expression reflects, and is intimately related to, the needs of people working in archaeology to establish and maintain professional and social identities in a discipline that has always been distinctly insular in both these respects. It is through the production processes, both technical and social, that these desires and intentionalities become intrinsic elements of the images themselves.
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Drawings made on site are created with the knowledge and expectation that they will be reproduced in multiple forms. In archaeology this does not only mean that they will have copies made for distribution. The processes through which these drawings are incorporated into archaeological discourse and embedded in archaeological narrative are processes both of reproduction and of reiteration. The pencil drawings made in the field are drawn with an awareness that they will be traced and redrawn, probably by someone else, to become part of an more inclusive whole. Inked reference plans, composite plans and sections, archive drawings, drawings for reports and drawings for final publication are inked up in the drawing office - lacing together the dispersed dialogues with the archaeology that the raw field drawings represent.
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Field drawings are created in the knowledge that evidence of individual authorship will be lost in the process of copying and reproduction. The subtle badges of authorship are integral to the materiality of the drawing. The name of the drawer carefully recorded in the corner and the individual style and character of the creator's hand - such details remain in excavation archives as a social narrative hidden from public view, representing the intentionalities of those who were involved in the excavation. However, as these narratives are subsumed into a collective product, so these intentionalities and desires are integrated into this collective, social product.
The removal of recognisable authorship is the first step in the reproduction and reiteration process that moves the visual representation of the archaeology from being an authentic rendering of the excavated product (a product of the author) towards becoming archaeological "truth". This is a particular product of archaeology's distinct balancing act between destruction and creation - archaeological truths (the record that is the product of excavation) are created through the actions of structured destruction that make up excavation practice.
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Archaeology's fundamental dualities - discovery and creation, destruction and preservation - equip the discipline with a plethora of conceptual arenas within which it creates and reproduces itself. The illustrative process that begins with drawing during excavation is one such arena, one in which the destruction and creation of excavation is represented in visual forms, and then subsequently reproduced and consumed as archaeological knowledge. Through these practices, as through other practices in archaeology, those in the discipline can be seen to be negotiating their relationships with both the archaeological material and those around them. The products of these practices can be seen to embody these negotiations, continually evoking and revisiting the complex intentions and desires of their creators throughout the transformation from drawing to archaeological truth.