Exhibition
There are many factors to consider for 3D digitisation, as there are no agreed-upon internationally recognised standards or guidelines for 3D projects.
First, which items should be digitised in 3D? This exhibition includes models of items you could hold in your hand, through to sites you could spend hours walking around.
For example, this Bote de Zamora (a type of cylindrical casket) is part of the collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, Spain.
It was commissioned by Cordoban caliph al-Hakam II as a gift for his loved one, Subh, a woman of great influence in Umayyad Cordoba. It would have contained gifts such as spices, jewellery, perfumes or fine fabrics.
Made in 964 CE, it is just over 17 centimetres tall and 11 centimetres in diameter, and made from ivory. Its surface contains intricate and delicate carvings of plants, flowers, animals and birds, as well as an inscription. It is an example of the transfer of elements, motifs and luxury from the East to the Western world through al-Andalus.
With the 3D model, you can look closely at these beautiful decorations.
Another item of a similar shape but 100 times larger in diameter than the Bote de Zamora is the Rotunda of St. Margaret of Antioch in Šivetice in Slovakia.
The Rotunda is a late Romanesque brick building, dating from the early 13th century, with an internal diameter of 11 metres. In the 18th century, a bell tower with an entrance gate was added to the building. It is one of the largest circular-shaped Romanesque structures in Central Europe, and one of the most important monuments from this time period in Slovakia.
Use the 3D model to look all around the rotunda, see the weathering of each brick and even see the flowers laid on the tombstones around it.
Why is 3D digitisation important for heritage sites?
Once you have decided what to digitise, there are many more considerations. What equipment should you use to digitise it? Where is the site itself, or where is the object to be placed for scanning? What are the lighting conditions? How do you capture the texture of the materials?
For these reasons and many more, it takes time to render a physical item or building into a 3D model, and so there is currently a fairly low level of 3D digitisation of such heritage in Europe. Inclusion in the Twin it! campaign is an important step.
Take the National Palace of Mafra in Portugal. The Palace is located around 30 kilometres northwest of Lisbon. Commissioned by King Dom João V in 1711, the architecture includes a royal palace, basilica, convent, garden and game reserve.
Despite being on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2019, the National Palace of Mafra has not been significantly digitalised in 3D, until now.
Another site now receiving its first digital documentation is Fort Louvigny, Luxembourg, a redoubt (temporary or supplementary fortification) with a detached bastion. There are a vast number of underground tunnels running underneath the city, some of which can be seen in the 3D model.
The site was part of fortifications of the city built in 1672-73. It is named after General Louvigny of the Spanish Habsbourg army who engineered the strengthening of the city's defences in the wake of Louis XIV's European wars.
The fort was razed in 1869 after the Treaty of London of 1867 stipulated the neutrality of Luxembourg and the dismantling of the fortress.
On the same site today stands the 20th century Villa Louvigny with its ‘Grand Auditoire’. It was inaugurated on 18 May 1953 to broadcast concerts and serve as a rehearsal space for the Radio Luxembourg/RTL Symphony Orchestra (founded in 1933). Villa Louvigny housed the former headquarters of the Société luxembourgeoise de radio et de télévision, and hosted the Eurovision Song Contest twice in the 1960s.
The landscapes around Villa Louvigny are open to the public as a municipal park. Now, the public can also explore the interior of the Grand Auditoire in 3D.
How can 3D digitisation help to preserve cultural heritage?
3D models allow both interested visitors and dedicated research professionals the opportunity to explore objects and sites in an interactive and detailed way, without having to leave their workspace, and without doing damage that even careful physical exploration can do.
For cultural heritage professionals, 3D versions of fragile sites and objects allow them to monitor their condition and prioritise future repairs.
If the worst happens and the piece of heritage is lost or destroyed, research professionals and industry professionals such as engineers can use 3D content to reconstruct them.
The ruins of Momjan Castle in Momiano, northern Istria, Croatia, are located on an isolated rocky outcrop, surrounded on all sides by sheer and deep cliffs.
Today, the castle is in ruins. All that survives are a square tower, some perimeter walls, and the remains of the drawbridge system once used to access the castle.
The earliest known reports date the castle to the 1230s. It was abandoned in the 1830s, and deteriorated quickly. In the space of 100 years, its magnificent structure was reduced to sparse ruins.
The 3D model is a great contribution to research on medieval fortifications, helping us to understand the use and architectural development of similar complexes in both Istria and beyond.
As a building material, wood does not always withstand the centuries. This 18th-century wooden building was part of the Arvistava estate in Rumšiškės, Lithuania. It is the only such surviving building in Lithuania, a valuable example of Lithuanian wooden architecture of the Baroque period. It has already been deconstructed and reconstructed physically, and now it has been replicated in 3D to preserve it for future generations.
The building features an ornate roof with a moulded cornice. Its main facade is supported by six wooden columns. The exterior walls are clad with vertical planks and painted yellow. The building represents the interaction between traditional construction and nobility architecture in Lithuania.
In the 1980s, the building was donated to the Lithuanian Folk Life Museum. At the time, the building was completely dilapidated - part of it had even been used for keeping pigs! In 1987, it was dismantled and transported to the museum, where it was stored and eventually rebuilt in 2010.
Moving on to an even larger site, the Cittadella, located on the island of Gozo in Malta, has a rich history dating back to the Bronze Age. Over the centuries, it has been a site of significance for the Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, the Normans, Ottomans, the French and British. The surviving buildings are of great architectural merit, and provide a good picture of different layers of architectural styles from the late medieval period to the early 20th century.
Its position on a natural flat-topped hill gave the site its function as a fortress for many centuries, with a city developing around it. It was decommissioned as a military site in 1868.
Centuries of abandonment and pillaging of stone material have reduced the Cittadella to a ruin, belying its history as a well-populated fortified city in its prime. The 3D reconstruction of Gozo helps today’s visitors to understand its scale and historical significance.
How can 3D models highlight under-represented histories?
The Great Synagogue of Erfurt was opened in 1884. It was designed by architect Siegfried Kusnitzky, had a capacity for 500 worshippers and represented a milestone in German-Jewish history in Erfurt. Having been banned for 350 years, Jewish people had only recently been permitted to settle in Erfurt. The population grew so rapidly that the existing synagogue was no longer answering its needs and a new one was built.
In 1938, it was destroyed during the November pogroms under the Nazi regime in Germany. This 3D reconstruction contributes to creating historical awareness of the cultural wealth of Jewish life.
Another synagogue with a similar history was the Old Synagogue in Wiesbaden, the largest of the city's five synagogues. Designed by architect Phillip Hoffmann, it was located in the Michelsberg district. It was built in the 1860s, and it too was destroyed in the November pogroms in 1938.
Both 3D models offer visitors the ability to walk through and experience these historical and religiously significant buildings. Of the five synagogues in Wiesbaden that were destroyed in 1938, this is the only one which is available as a 3D reconstruction.
Women’s contributions to art, culture, history and society are also often under-represented. While women’s stories and experiences are often at the heart of many societies, they are under-represented in archives and collections.
For example, there are very few pre-historic representations of women, but the Venus of Brassempouy, now rendered as a 3D model, is one of them. It was discovered along with four other statuettes made of mammoth ivory in 1894 by Édouard Piette and Joseph de Laporterie in the Pope’s cave in Brassempouy (Landes), France.
Mammoth ivory is an extremely fragile material, so it is incredible that this head has survived practically intact since the Gravettian period, 34,500-25,000 years ago. Finely engraved details show a long and graceful neck, a triangular head with a broad forehead and pointed chin, framed by a hairstyle interpreted as braided hair, a shell net or even a hood.
Moving forward in time to the 21st dynasty of Egypt (c. 1069-945 BCE), this inner coffin of a sarcophagus is located at the Egyptian Collection of the Royal Art and History Museum in Brussels, Belgium.
The coffin is meant for a woman - the inscription at the foot of the casket states that the deceased was a singer of Amon (an Egyptian deity revered as king of the gods), but her name was left blank. Decorations on the casket show scenes relating to Egyptian funerary practices.
The Amon singer is shown passing the test of the weighing of her heart, and offering herself to the guardians of the afterlife. In the afterlife, she is accompanied by her Ba (soul bird) as she stands in worship before the tree goddess and the goddess Hathor presented as a cow (protector of the necropolis).
In the 1930s, Belgium was referred to as ‘the capital of Egyptology’ and its interest in explaining and sharing Egyptian history still exists today. The use of 3D technology for preservation and research allows such heritage to be explored and shared as meaningfully as possible with the heritage communities to whom it belongs.
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, was published in 1837 and in 1909, a ballet performance of the story took place in Copenhagen. Not long after this came two Danish sculptures united by the mermaid theme, but differing in interpretation.
The first was the now-famous traditionally feminine and seductive 1913 sculpture by Edvard Eriksen that resides in Copenhagen. The second is this 1921 sculpture by Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, which has become a major work in the history of Danish Vitalism and Danish sculpture in general.
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s mermaid greets the world with a scream, with her mouth and large fish-like eyes open. The mermaid is an amphibious creature, with a human torso and a fish's lower body - a tail with stylised fish scales. Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen's mermaid seems alive, with a zest for life and inner strength, while also seeming to represent despair and loss.
A number of versions of the statue exist. A bronze sculpture, cast in 1921, is on display in the Danish National Gallery. Another cast was installed outside the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen in 2009. The original plaster model is owned by the Carl Nielsen Museum and is on display in the Funen Art Museum in Odense.