Hello everyone, me (Ali) and Lucia had a conversation on primarily the project called #NEWPALMYRA, a website consisting of 3D models of buildings from the ancient city of Palmyra which was partially destroyed by the terrorist group ISIS in 2015.
This was my first podcast ever so I’m looking forward to your comments 🙂
Resources
- https://newpalmyra.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmyra
- https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23/
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/19/palmyras-triumphal-arch-recreated-in-trafalgar-square
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/photogrammetry
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry
First of all, congrats to you for creating your first podcast, I think you did great! 🙂 Secondly, thank you so much for this case study. Personally, I have heard some things about digital archaeology before, but was not aware of #NEWPALMYRA.
I would generally consider these techniques and programs as great ways to visualize buildings, structures or monuments that no longer exist in their original form. While studying architecture that turned out to be rather helpful, especially for my classes on architectural history. It is often not easy to imagine what a structure used to look like, especially if you do not get to visit the location/ruins. I have to say though that I never felt like these reconstruction did the actual constructions justice, even though it is quite impressive that we now have technologies that are able to digitally reconstruct sites like these.
In your specific case of Palmyra the controversy seems to arise from different issues, the most important one being the very recent destruction of the already destroyed arch and the background of said destruction. While I would argue that ‘simply’ reconstructing it digitally is still a great idea, the entire act of placing a copy of it in a place like Trafalgar Square, or any place for that matter, seems just wrong. First of all, the arch is being taken out of its original context – in two ways, the origin of this cultural heritage, as well as the location of its destruction by ISIS. Which brings me to the second point: considering the number of people that were forced to flee the country, one should consider the fact that many are still carrying the trauma of these events on their shoulders, and an encounter with a digital construction of a central Syrian site could well do more harm than good.