This paper presents a method for an estimation of the axis of rotation
of radially symmetric objects from their fragments. In particular,
fragments of archaeological pottery are considered. The method exploits
basic geometrical properties of fragments which are described by an
appropriate model. The estimation is performed in several steps which
continuously improve accuracy and robustness of an initial estimate.
Because only coordinates of surface points of a fragment are required
for the estimation, the proposed method can be implemented as a fully
automatic process. The approach has been evaluated on both synthetic
objects and real pottery fragments.