A near-perfect replica of a Roman triumphal arch from the ancient city Palmyra that was destroyed by Isil militants in Syria last year will go on display for three days in Trafalgar Square, London, from today, 19 April.
The 15m-tall structure has been cut from marble by computer-controlled drills. By superimposing multiple photographs of the now vanished arch, specialists were able to create a 3D model of the monument to guide the machine reconstruction, a process known as 3D machining.
The project is a joint venture between researchers at Oxford and Harvard Universities and Dubai’s Museum of the Future. Together they form the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA), an organisation which promotes the use of technology such as digital imaging and 3D printing to document and reconstruct monuments destroyed by conflicts or natural disasters.
“The Trafalgar Square project is a celebration of the heritage of the Middle East and an optimistic response to the ongoing destruction of cultural sites,” says Alexy Karenowska, director of technology at the IDA. After its London display, the Palmyra triumphal arch will be erected in New York in September. Karenowska said that one possible venue is City Hall Park but the location has not yet been definitively agreed. After New York, the arch will be erected in Dubai.
The IDA had originally intended to reconstruct and display the only arch from the Temple of Bel at Palmyra that survived Isil’s explosives. But Unesco warned the organisation that focusing attention on the only standing structure from the ancient temple could put it at risk. “We advised them to reconstruct something that has already been destroyed,” Giovanni Boccardi, chief of the emergency preparedness and response unit, culture sector, Unesco, told The Art Newspaper. “The Syrians expressed strong reservations about the [Temple of Bel] project.”
At-risk sites digitally mapped Just over a year ago the IDA began work on a database of high-resolution images of ancient sites at risk. The organisation teamed up with Unesco to deliver custom-made cameras to an army of volunteers across the Middle East including Unesco staff, archaeologists, museum workers, tour guides and others. Between them participants took hundreds of thousands of photographs, documenting dozens of sites, including Palmyra before it fell into Isil’s hands (it was since retaken by Syrian government forces at the end of March). The IDA estimates that the database, which will soon be fully online, will contain a million pictures by the end of the year.
The technology pioneered by the IDA and its extensive documentation of the city of Palmyra could one day be used to reconstruct the entire site. “Such a reconstruction would have to be driven by local and regional stakeholders, and we would have to be careful not to impose our views on them, but we’ve talked to a number of people there, including the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums, the official body for culture and heritage in Syria, and there does seem to be a huge appetite for reconstruction,” Karenowska said. The site could be recreated by using 3D printing and 3D machining technologies, she added. “We have the capacity to do it.”