Key To The Ages

This is the first poster I ever did.
Translation of text: Archaeology in Neuss (my hometown) ... Key to the ages

Well... my watchers already know that I work at the department for field monument preservation at the moment. My job is to take photos of small archaeological finds and create a digital archive with them.
So far I made far more than 3000 photos, combined, did postwork, numbered and named them etc and until now there are over 2000 photos finished. All as they are supposed to be... with a ruler and photographed in a certain way, several perspectives together, yaddayadda. There are rules, when it comes to shooting archaeological finds! I am still learning and I am no photographer. Nor do I have a proper workstation, lights, backgrounds or a camera with a proper macro function!
So I have to work as best as I can with the little I have. Self-made backdrops, a tiny repro-station... Well... since those finds were NEVER BEFORE shot, this is at least 100% better than anything the department had before!

I loaded up the big version here, so that you can admire the beautiful finds. I recommend hitting *download*.

All of these pieces went through my hands and it is wonderful to literally FEEL the history.

What you can find on this poster (amongst other stuff):

roman glass
a medieval key
a roman key
roman coin
coins from the 16th, 17th and 19th century
roman oil lamps
a uniform decoration from Napoleon's time
medieval tile
medieval belt decoration
a fragment of an iron age clay pot
a roman knife
marbles
terra sigillata bowls
a roman *onion-button fibula* (a military decoration)
roman pumpkin beads
a shield boss
a stoneage tool

and much more.... Dating from at least 10,000 BC up to the 19th century.

Some photos were taken freehand (to get exactly the right angle of the crappy light to show details ), most were taken with a stand. I cut out all the finds here and put them on a black background. The single finds are not in the same scale!!!! The beads are only half an inch, the roman glass bottle is ten inches tall... I just put them together to make a nice poster...