A Study of Analyzing Shape Similarities Between the Arm Model of Mongolian Buddha Statues for Archaeological Applications

Abstract

Analyzing body shape similarities between Tara statues of Zanabazar is worthwhile since researchers have assumed that the bodies of several statues were molded from the same template. This paper provides a novel and easy methodology for analyzing shape similarities between point clouds from two different Tara statue arm models, for the archaeological application. The methodology has two main steps. In the first step, individual body parts were reconstructed without decorations on it, using the previously proposed methods. The second step, the main contribution of this paper, is to evaluate shape similarities between point clouds of the two different arm models. The proposed methodology was tested on arm parts of Mongolian Buddha statues, and similarities between different, undecorated arm models were examined, using the proposed method and established point-to-point error metric, which showed that the proposed methodology was reliable and effective, in this application.