Throughout years of turmoil, political warfare and natural disasters, Iraq has had brutal damage done to its wealth of historical artifacts. Just days after the Islamist State militants (ISIS) laid siege to and demolished priceless ancient sites — in particular, antiques at the Mosul Museum — Ph.D. students/archaeologist rallied to restore the lost treasures with a new technique: “cyber archaeology,” or, the application of photogrammetry.
Cyber archaeologists: discovering “digital reconstruction” of artifacts through 3D printing
The volunteer project began in late February, after Ph.D. students Chance Coughenour and Matthew Vincent began a mission to salvage what was left after the militants tore down the museum in northern Iraq. These students are working for the Initial Training Network for Digital Cultural Heritage (ITN-DCH), a EU-backed project that aims to apply the use of technology to pressing cultural heritage issues. Coughenour and Vincent decided to crowdfund the reconstruction of these artifacts through imagery — specially, through the science of photogrammetry. Photogrammetry, now a popular technique used to aid modern cultural heritage projects, utilizes software to mold 2D photographs (simply taken by a digital camera) of an object into complex 3D images.
Thus, Project Mosul came into being. Visitors to the now-destroyed heritage sites can take and submit their own photographs, which are then sorted through by volunteers and, ultimately, rebuilt and recreated three-dimensionally by experts. So far, the project has gotten over 700 photos, and has made 15 3D reconstructions. First, the volunteer experts use specialized software to construct replicas through the photographs, and then upload them via Sketchfab, a virtual 3D sharing platform. The higher the amount of images applied, the denser and more detailed the potential reconstruction.
Through photogrammetry, archaeologists have new way to preserve artistic integrity
Even though the models derived from 3D printing can’t rival what could have been recreated with specialized scanning equipment, the 3D models produced through volunteer work are astounding. They may not have been reconstructed with laser scans and professionally calibrated cameras, but they have implanted a very realistic sense of the lost artifacts through visualization.
The digital copies will remain significant in the study of Iraqi art history and Assyrian art, despite not having immensely precise characteristics. We will never know how accurate these depictions truly are, but they’ve begun the movement (and have raised the awareness) of digital preservation efforts for reconstructing precious, lost artifacts.
