When a 3D scan of a tomb ruined my field notes in Luxor

I was recording a small 18th dynasty burial shaft outside Luxor last October when my tablet died mid-photo and the backup drive corrupted the same hour. The worst part was I'd just finished a 40-point grid survey, and without the digital copy, my paper sketch had mismatched wall angles that took two days to redo. A colleague argued I should switch to full photogrammetry, but the site director insisted on manual tracing for accuracy. I got the data fixed by re-checking every stone against the original field notebook, but it cost me a week of daylight. So, which method would you trust more in a remote dig, digital scans or old school pencil and paper? Anyone else had a tech failure that turned into a bigger headache than the find itself?

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1 Comment

sage521mo ago

Stick with the paper backup, at least you can trust it when the power goes out.