Appreciation post for old-school site maps

I used to just skim excavation reports online. Click through, look at the photos, move on. Last year I dug into a dig from 1973 in Pompeii. The printed site maps were hand drawn. Pencil lines, notes in the margins. Took me forever to understand the layout. But I learned more from that one map than ten digital models. Anyone else find old paper records more useful?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery_taylor3h ago

Gotta admit, my dumbass spent 20 minutes trying to figure out why the digital map was loading so slowly before I realized it was just a PDF of a hand-drawn one.

charlie_allen7m ago

Notice how the same thing happens with Google Maps vs asking an old-timer for directions.