Can We Digitize History Before ISIS Destroys it?
With ISIS waging war against the Middle Easts ancient monuments, can archaeologists capture digital renderings of the sites before its too late?
This past June, 14 years after the Taliban bombed Afghanistans Bamiyan Buddha statues, a Chinese couple created life-sized holograms of the ancient artifacts and projected them back into their cliffside home.
Now, archaeologists hope that the Middle Easts historical sites can be captured with 3-D photography, printed out and reassembled if theyre ever destroyed.
As ancient sites across Syria and Iraq crumble under bombs and mortar from the regions battles, archaeologists and technologists are racing to be able to one day reproduce them. In the coming months, they will be distributing thousands of low-cost, high-quality 3D cameras across the Middle East that will hopefully capture these ancient sites before they disappear.
The Institute for Digital Archaeology, a joint venture between Oxford and Harvard Universities, is spearheading a $2.3 million project to digitally preserve the worlds most treasured sites.
Once one of Syrias top tourist attractions, the ancient city of Palmyra has been turned into a battleground by ISISs forces. Just as the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas, the jihadists have been on a culturally destructive rampage. Earlier this year, militants destroyed priceless statues in Mosuls museum and bulldozed the 3,000-year-old city of Nimrud, both in Iraq. Now, with news that the Baal Shamin temple in the ancient site of Palmyra was destroyed by militants in late August, the project has become increasingly urgent.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/02/can-we-digitize-history-before-isis-destroys-it.html