This article proposes a general view on the graphical production by Rosario Carta providing an occasion for some reflections on the relationship between the methods of the archaeological survey at the end of XIXth Century - beginning of the XXth and the present trend of the archaeological graphical documentation. As a surveyor and drawer, Rosario Carta (1869-1962) took part to an exceptional research season of archaeology in Sicily, and linked his name mainly to the activity of Paolo Orsi. Educated at the Scuola d'Arti e Mestieri of Catania, Carta was an eclectic professional, able to manage different kind of archaeological survey, from the ornate drawing to the photography and the purely didactic drawings accompanying the reports on the journal Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità. The reliability of the drawings by Rosario Carta, the markedly archaeological contents of his representations, that is the abundance of relevant notes for archaeologists (stratigraphical relationships, heights, interpretation of building technics, chronological themes), and the reconstructive proposals by his own express the very strict relationship with the field work, with a lived and practiced archaeology, full consistent with the contemporary theories.