News from Diagnostic World: a new Palmyra
Today I will not talk about diagnostic analysis or scientific innovations in the world of conservation, but about how new technologies can be put to use when it comes to safeguarding and transmitting Cultural Heritage to future generations, especially in times when antique civilisations are neglected and disregarded.
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| The archaeological area of Palmyra in 2005. |
Every day, we hear news of terrorist attacks by the self-proclaimed Islamic State, not only against citizens of Western culture in European cities, but also against artistic and architectural works that symbolize the Middle Eastern culture. This was the case of Palmyra, known as one of the oldest and most important cities in Syria, a crossroads of various civilizations and a significant commercial hub (the Bride of the desert for ancient travelers). The archaeological area of the I-III century AD contains evidence of the blend between the Greco-Roman populations’ technologies and the local traditions and influences of the Persians and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980. On the 21st of May 2015, ISIS declared that it had conquered the modern city of Palmyra and its archaeological site; in August of the same year, with a series of attacks, Islamic terrorists razed some of the most famous monuments of the old city to the ground.
After the expulsion of the terrorists in the spring of 2016, experts and scholars in the sector, along with two Tuscan companies, joined their forces to give life to a project that is as scrupulous as it is ambitious: the reconstruction, using 3D printing and natural materials, of original monuments of Palmyra that were irreparably damaged. These new technologies were chosen for a simple reason: as Prof. Matthiae says, the monuments to be rebuilt have been disintegrated to such an extent that it is impossible to proceed using anastylosis, a technique in which Italian archaeologists and architects excel.
The project involved an archaeological and photographic study of the works, followed by the creation of digital projects, which became the guidelines of the modeling robot (some have defined it as a sort of "subtraction printing") of the blocks of stones. The latter were not extracted from mines, but 3D printed using sand as raw material. Thanks to this project, which began with the construction of the small-scale triumphal arch, we hope one day to be able to restore the archaeological area to its pre-war state.
The Institute for digital archeology of Oxford, partner and financier of this project, distributed cameras to civilians and volunteers in the Middle East to immortalise all the works of art still standing in archaeological sites at risk. In the hypothesis of new interventions of reconstruction in war zones, these images can be used to create detailed projects on which to base large copies of ancient monuments.
Here is the link to the video of the reconstruction of the arch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbiBvwbO9jU
Here is the presentation of the new arch to the world:
http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/04/19/
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