An interesting story I read today in BBC News, Rome's underground Christian, Jewish and pagan burial sites, the Catacombs, which date back to the 2nd Century AD are for the first time virtually reconstructed in 3D.
There are more than 40 of them stretching over 170km (105 miles). But, until now, they have never been fully documented, their vast scale only recorded with handmade maps. That is now changing, following a three-year project to create the first fully comprehensive three-dimensional image using laser scanners.
A team of 10 Austrian and Italian archaeologists, architects and computer scientists have started with the largest catacomb, Saint Domitilla, just outside the Italian capital. The tunnels, caves, galleries and burial chambers of Saint Domitilla stretch for about 15km (9 miles) over a number of levels. At a time when Christians, in particular, were persecuted, the Catacombs became a relatively safe place to bury the dead. The soft, volcanic tufa rock was an especially workable, yet durable, material that was burrowed out over the course of nearly three centuries. Yet, because of concerns about safety, only about 500m (1,640ft) are accessible to the public today.
A team of 10 Austrian and Italian archaeologists, architects and computer scientists have started with the largest catacomb, Saint Domitilla, just outside the Italian capital. The tunnels, caves, galleries and burial chambers of Saint Domitilla stretch for about 15km (9 miles) over a number of levels. At a time when Christians, in particular, were persecuted, the Catacombs became a relatively safe place to bury the dead. The soft, volcanic tufa rock was an especially workable, yet durable, material that was burrowed out over the course of nearly three centuries. Yet, because of concerns about safety, only about 500m (1,640ft) are accessible to the public today.
The leader of the project, Dr Norbert Zimmerman of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, was behind the idea to use laser scanners to record every part of the Catacombs. His scanner, which looks like a cylinder on a tripod, stands a metre or so high and is a piece of kit you usually find in the construction industry.
"It is not a virtual image, it is not animation - what you are seeing is real data," says Dr Zimmerman."You could have filmed each room. But that would not have given you the ability to 'travel' through the catacomb in a way that the scanned images allow", he says. "It's moving, 3D flexibility, gives you the chance to compare areas, to assess the ways the Catacombs were developed over time, to analyse how and why those who built them did what they did", he adds. "That's never been possible before."
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