Non-invasive morphological studies of a tomographic dataset of Funerary Urns from the Middle Balsas region in Michoacán, Mexico

Abstract

Studies of the funeral context of Funerary Urns using X-ray tomography provides a non-invasive method for measuring the context distribution, textural descriptors, topological, and morphological properties of the pieces inside the urns.This work presents a computational framework that provides the methods for processing the raw data produced by clinical X-ray tomography. The objective is to describe the distribution of the elements inside the urn and obtain three-dimensional models of the pieces which compose the funeral context. Subsequently, the models are evaluated using a set of morphological measurements which provide descriptors of each item from a set of funerary urns from the Middle Balsas region in Michoacán, Mexico.It was observed that the distribution of bones and metal objects within the urns was non-uniform. While some general burial practices were observed in some urns, the funerary context in each urn presented a difference in the number of bone fragments or metal volume. In addition, not all urns contained metal objects. The urns which contained metal objects each contained various quantities, and the contexts were distributed differently.This methodology is a way to gather accurate information of the context items’ positions within a three-dimensional environment to understand better the process involved in the funerary practice.